Here and There

For doing things like this.

I dare you to watch this and not fall over in your chair:

Let’s see, over at Fox Whatever-the-Hell-Kinda-Channel and in the general right-wingnut-osphere, over the course of the campaign season, Barack Obama has been portrayed as a Muslim, a Marxist, an America-hating, arugula-loving, fresh-out-of-water radical who can’t bowl and who is married to a Black Panther who wants to eat your babies.

But John McCain thinks Iraq and Pakistan share a border.

He kinda reminds me of Miss Teen South Carolina 2007, who gave this eloquent retort to a question about geography:

I finally got the July 21, 2008, issue of the New Yorker that had so many bloggers, blog readers, and media types in a tizzy earlier this week.

I was outraged. And here’s why:

From the moment I saw the cover (Sunday night, I believe it was), I thought it was funny, if not hilarious, if not brilliant. New Yorker cartoons often take a moment to fully sink in and realize the hilariousness of. Ditto here, except that I was realizing how funny and awesome it was — what a great Fuck You to the legions of morons out there who believe any or all of the stereotypes so artfully portrayed by the artist.

But I was pissed looking at this cover, once I held it in my hands, because now all it does is remind me what an annoying little episode it represents in this never-ending campaign season.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’ll fade away into the depths of long-term, collective memory. We rarely talk of Reverend Jeremiah Wright these days, after all.

But maybe I’m right. Gee, that would make a great alternative title of this blog. Heh.

For that split second between opening my Gmail spam inbox and deleting all spam messages, I get a glimpse of the messages’ subject lines. They’re usually something along the lines of, “Give her what $he is beggging for,” or, “Show her your new muscle.” I never open the messages, of course, but Gmail lets you see the first few words, and they typically have nothing whatsoever to do with having or obtaining a larger penis. It’s more like, “Hugo Chavez addresses UN Secret Council.” Something like that.

Anyway, today, something stood out:

I dunno. This one kinda, sorta rings true. Should I regret deleting it?

The Bush Squad wants to redefine birth control as abortion.

My take: They sat back and reflected, and realized that they hadn’t wreaked enough physical, moral, and sexual havoc on the nation and the world, and decided this would really get the ball rolling again, circa 20 A.D. style.

Bastards. At least Speaker Nancy Pelosi had the decency to waste no time denouncing the move.

He’s the sorriest excuse for a human, let alone politician, I have ever seen. He’s worse than Helms, Thurmond, and Cheney, combined.

He’s actually saying (and therefore expecting us to believe) that Barack Obama lacks conviction.

The Democratic caucus in the Senate needs to kick him out, now. No excuses!

Readers: Write your Democratic senators today and demand that they strip this bandit of his power.

I found that perusing this page was actually mildly entertaining.

From Obama’s own pen, in the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times.

The New Yorker editor-in-chief speaks sanity to a non-story run amok.

I dunno. Should I feel bad for not freaking out? It’s so clearly over-the-top satire, I don’t think it’s gonna persuade anyone who’s on the fence.

The way I see it, there are three camps of U.S. voter: Obama, McCain, on the fence. Obama supporters will still vote for him. McCain voters will still vote for him. People on the fence won’t be pushed to McCain because of this cover of a magazine, never mind that it’s the New Yorker.

To me, it doesn’t perpetuate stereotypes as much as it does expose the ridiculousness of them.

At age 53. Way too young, I don’t care what his political bent.

Steve Benen went to the trouble of listing at least 61 policy decisions on which John McCain has changed his mind, flip-flopped, whatever.

For the record, I don’t have a problem with politicians changing their positions as time goes on. What I do have a problem with is double-standards, i.e., dumb-ass GOP nutjobs who’ll be calling Barack Obama (like Kerry before him) a flip-flopper until eternity. Take a look in the mirror, assholes. Then look at your candidate.

Another one I hadn’t deeply considered who turns out to be perfectly viable. Except for that home loan thing …

Bergmann’s latest post at HuffPo suggests that, at least as of today, McCain campaign gaffes should’ve cost him his run for the presidency.