Ketchup Is A Vegetable

I have praised the Vice President on these pages before, and I am about to praise him yet again for his incredible and, indeed, historic performance last evening during the vice presidential debate.

I was just telling some folks the night before: Do not underestimate Joe Biden. His reputation as a “gaffe machine” is an incomplete caricature of the man. He will bring it, I predicted. And, he did.

I predict too that a certain liberal talk radio host named Randi Rhodes will be over the moon today.

Randi’s story is that she met Joe Biden some years ago and asked him why they don’t just look these Republigoats in the eye and call them liars to their faces. Why, he replied, do you have to ask us to do the most difficult thing there is to do?

Last night, Joe Biden did the most difficult thing. He called a Republigoat a liar to his face on national television. Way to go, Joe.

I am not even remotely inclined to buy the conventional wisdom regarding last night’s debate between President Obama and Willard Romney, that Romney somehow “won” the event. Nonsense.

I am willing to call it a draw. But only with a big fat asterisk.

They say that Romney spoke for 38 minutes, and that in that time, he told 27 whoppers.

Not to mention that he was an authoritative, steamrolling asshat.

No, I do not buy the conventional wisdom that Willard Romney won this debate. I don’t think you win a debate by lying your ass off. The President brought a cogent explanation of his administration’s record and of his plans for the country’s future. Sure, he might should have brought a few firebombs out of his utility belt. But in case you haven’t been paying attention, that is not generally President Obama’s style.

I am proud of our President and his performance last evening. He was dignified and straightforward. His opponent was, as usual, a braying jackass.

At worst, it was a draw. With an asterisk.

Mitt Romney is not running to be the President of the United States.

He is running to be President of 53 percent of all ya’ll.

That’s what he said.

End of post.

Clint Eastwood is still out there talking about his insidious speech at the Republigoat Fartnoomie Conflution. And boy, am I glad he is.

When that happened, I didn’t have access to no fancy Internet, so I couldn’t blogificate about it then. However, the fact that this aging douchebag is still having to defend his actions means it is still timely, and, therefore, I get to tell you about the amazing symbolism of this senile old prick talking to an imaginary Barack Obama.

I mean, I don’t know what people find so surprising about a Republigoat making up a President Obama who doesn’t exist, and then engaging in debate and criticism with the President Obama that he had just made up.

Isn’t that the entire Republigoat campaign strategery?

I cannot tell you if I would like for Mitt Romney to keep talking, or if I want him to shut his pie hole.

So here’s how it went. There was this movie put on YouTube that nobody seems to know what the name of it is. It was a movie that said bad things about Islam. So in a lot of countries where they have Islam-my people, the people were getting nasty. So the U.S. embassy in Libya issued a statement about the film that was going for kum-by-yah. Then, a bunch of assholes attacked the U.S. embassy in Libya and an envoy and some other Americans were killed.

So Mitt Romney got up and said that, clearly, this means Obama is sympathetic to the people who launched this vicious attack.

I’d like him to keep talking because the more he keeps talking the more clear it is that he is an incompetent, disingenuous boob. And, the more it makes President Obama look like the cool cucumber in the room.

However. It is sometimes fun to fantasize.

Wouldn’t it be more interesting if the Republican in the race actually offered a measured, intelligent response? If he said something along the lines of, “this is a difficult time for the dead and their families and of course we will support the President and pray he will act wisely in this time of crisis?”

Isn’t one of your goals as a presidential candidate to actually appear to be presidential?

That’s how Barack Obama became POTUS. Have you ever heard the story? Watch Frontline when they cover the bank bailouts.

Remember when John McCain “suspended his campaign” and called an emergency meeting at the White House? Do you know who the guy was in the room who was on top of things, knew his stuff, and spoke authoritatively about the crisis?

Do you know which guy in the room fumbled with his note cards, farted, and said “Gleep gleep?”

Winning the Presidency is not solely by giving the President titty-twisters. It is useful to, from time to time, actually appear to be President-like.

I am less and less nervous about 2012 all the time.

It seems impossible to me that it was 11 years ago.

As always, the thing that always strikes me in my memory of the September attacks on this country in 2001 is what a pitch perfect, beautiful day it was in Washington D.C. How I noticed that and appreciated it before I walked to my office downtown, only to have to evacuate and walk home an hour later.

I don’t have much to comment about it today really, nothing I haven’t said before. Although, I will add this.

We have a President now who is intelligently and semi-covertly screwing up the global terrorist network like nobody’s business. Some of my political stripe are concerned about this, and I appreciate their concern. But. I would compare this President’s response to September Eleventh with the previous guy any day.

He’s keeping us safe, folks. Really.

Sadly, I work when the Democratic Convention was broadcast. But, it’s amazing what you can do with an IPhone with the C-SPAN app installed. I was able to listen to many of the convention speeches, including Obama’s and Biden’s tonight.

I was also able to hear the Foo Fighters perform, and to hear Scarlett Johansen and Eva Longoria as well. They had Clint Eastwood. We had hot chicks and one of the most awesome rock bands of our day. Heh.

I think the case was made, and, I am pleased that the general message that is needed seems to be going forward: President Obama has earned another four years.

This is disgusting.

The Democratic Convention. Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio brings two amendments to the Democratic Platform to the floor, one to say that Democrats believe in the Lord too, and the other to say that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

The chair ran roughshod here over what was clearly a contested vote. He had to take the voice vote three times, and the third time, even though the vote was still contested, he just said screw it and went with the God squad.

God should not be anywhere near any political platform. The Constitution is explicit about this; there is no intepretation needed; it is a matter of Original Intent.

Article VI, paragraph 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

If you include God as a plank in your political platform, you are dictating that the leader of your party, generally thought to be the President of the United States, will carry out that platform plank. That in my book is a religious test because there is no way in hell that an atheist President (like there will ever be one) could or would support that platform issue.

Then there’s this Jerusalem nonsense. This policy statement flies in the face of U.S. policy, of the preference of the United Nations, the stance of the European Union and most all of our European allies. Generally policy on Jerusalem says that it should be an international entity. What is the party doing contradicting U.S. policy on this matter?

More weirdness from Ohio. Good-NESS.

I have been absent from these pages for some time, it is true. The Serious Poo-Poo Institute of Technology has been in the midst of relocating, and therefore I have been without Internet access for weeks. You know how it goes. These are the travails of the blogger.

The Democratic Convention has been going swimmingly, I think. I was unable to hear Michelle Obama, the Most Elegant First Lady of the United States in History, speak. I will catch up on her speech later, now that, well, you know, I have access to the Internet.

I often bang my head against the steering wheel of my car trying to figure out how in the wide wide world of sports there is any question that President Barack Obama should be re-elected. He has earned a second term. There has not been a President in recent history who has deserved a second term more handily than has Mr. Obama.

This man is not the cause of current state of the economy. He is the architect who stopped the economy from running all the way off the cliff. He reformed our health care system. He led the effort to shoot Osama Bin Laden in the eye. He got rid of the hideous policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He saved the automobile industry, indeed, he saved the automobile industry at a time when his opponent was all like “screw those guys.” He went all bad-ass on those Somali pirates. He scolded the United States Supreme Court right to their faces.

I am convinced that Obama will win, by the way, although I am bewildered that there is even any question. I am convinced he will win based on the strength of the votes of women. Based on the stupidity that was the whole contraception debate and a general concern that the government is sniffing around in their nether-regions a bit too much, I predict that women will come out in droves and will preserve a well-earned second term for Mr. Obama.

I have more predictions, too, if you like.

I predict that if my previous prediction is incorrect, that is, if instead Mitt Romney is elected President of the United States, I predict that Mr. Romney will have a robust jobs bill on his desk by 1:15 p.m. January 20. This is the most cynical prediction I have ever made. But it is what is happening. Congress is holding you hostage as surely as the Iranian students held their hostages until Ronald Raygun’s inauguration in 1980.

In this short-term regard, a Romney Presidency would not be terrible. We would have full cooperation from Congress under his White House. I mean, if you like voting with a party that would hold you hostage. And the party that caused this whole mess in the first place. And the party that wants to regulate your vagina. And the party that brought you the attacks of September Eleventh.

Fired up.

Cheers to McSweeny’s for doing something excellent.

As their editorial staff put it:

We are three months away from the presidential election, and there is a stunning lack of energy displayed by likely Obama voters.

Some who voted for Obama are disappointed in decisions he’s made, things he hasn’t done. And so millions of voters, the same ones who campaigned so fervently for Obama in 2008—the same ones who achieved history by not only overturning eight years of disastrous Republican leadership, but by electing the first African-American president—these same voters are collectively looking at this election and thinking, “I’ll sit this one out.”

And until a few weeks ago, we were more or less in this camp, too. We had attended no rallies, donated no funds. No one we knew had. Everyone—no matter how inspired they were in 2008—was watching from the sidelines.

Then we had a revelation, which sounds less like a revelation and more like a plainly obvious reality: if this doesn’t become an all-hands-on-deck movement to re-elect President Obama, he will lose. And Mitt Romney, who has campaigned as the most conservative Republican candidate in history, will become president.

I have been remiss as well here in the ol’ blogosphere. You know. Real life going on and all. Not that I think this space actually moves and shakes. However, I think this McSweeny fellow is pretty smart, and I think it’s worth spending some time at 90 Days, 90 Reasons.