"wolf!" they cried, this time with feeling

even as the benghazi gasbags crumple under their own morbidly obese weight, from the outset it was never possible to take republicans seriously on it. first, the point man just wants to throw his weight around in front of the cameras one last time before the next senate takes it away from him. second, four years ago the GOP proudly and loudly proclaimed that their number one priority was to make obama a one-term president. to win 2012 obama needed to fail. at everything. thus began a nonstop and ultimately futile campaign of single-minded obstruction, condemnation and sabotage of every act, nomination and proposal obama has attempted to make. that is now historical fact. the GOP came to raze him, then to bury him. in all of four years obama wrested from them but a single moment of respite — after disclosing the death of bin laden, where even the most rabid partisans could find no safe purchase from which to continue their attacks.

when a party adopts a nakedly self-serving program of categorical obstruction, they also loudly announce that the merits of any particular issue do. not. matter. one. whit. quite foolishly they surrendered all credibility on anything and everything they object to, since they were planning to object anyway. everything becomes a "crisis" and the critics become the old men that cried wolf. so despite their loud moral opprobrium at the deaths of four americans, does anyone believe, had benghazi never happened, that the GOP would not now be organizing some kind of "crucial" hearings about some other administration "scandal"? does anyone believe, had rice's name never been floated, that the GOP would not now be obstructing this nomination, as they have every other?

no, you can't have it back

voted for george bush?

twice?

proud of it?

then stop yer bitchin!

mcjindal

the reviews are in — but haven't we seen this movie before?

keith olbermann, rachel maddow and chris matthews on msnbc:

josh marshall @ talkingpointsmemo:

jindal's comments and presentation was just weird and cringy and awful.

david brooks on pbs news hour:

... uh, not so well. you know, i think bobby jindal is a very promising politician, and i oppose the stimulus because i thought it was poorly drafted, but to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" — it's just a disaster for the republican party. the country is in a panic right now. they may not like the way the democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we're just gonna — that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that — in a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say "government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending," it's just a form of nihilism. it's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. there's an intra-republican debate. some people say the republican party lost its way because they got too moderate. some people say they got too weird or too conservative. he thinks they got too moderate, and so he's making that case. i think it's insane, and i just think it's a disaster for the party. i just think it's unfortunate right now.

andrew sullivan @ the atlantic:

close your eyes and think of kenneth from 30 rock. i can barely count the number of emails making that observation. i'm told olbermann's open mic got it right: jindal's entrance reminded one of mr. burns gamboling toward a table of ointments. ... there was, alas, a slightly high-school debate team feel to the beginning. and there was a patronizing feel to it as well — as if he were talking to kindergartners — that made obama's adult approach so much more striking. and i'm not sure that the best example for private enterprise is responding to a natural calamity that even ron paul believes is a responsibility for the federal government. and really: does a republican seriously want to bring up katrina? as for the biography, it felt like obama-lite. with far less political skill. ... but give him his due: he did in the end concede that the gop currently has a credibility problem on the fiscal issues they are now defining themselves with.... the rest was boilerplate. and tired, exhausted, boilerplate. if the gop believes tax cuts — more tax cuts — are the answer to every problem right now, they are officially out of steam and out of ideas. and remember: this guy is supposed to be the smart one.

kathryn jean lopez @ the national review:

e-mails i’m getting are from disappointed conservatives. they wanted a full-throated response to obama and expected and/or wanted more.

not even fox news is interested in rescuing poor bobby:

brit hume:	the speech read a lot better than it sounded. this was not bobby jindal's greatest oratorical moment.
nina easton:	the delivery was not exactly terrific.
charles krauthammer:	jindal didn't have a chance. he follows obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. he's in a reagan-esque league. ... [jindal] tried the best he could.
juan williams:	it came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. he was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.

okay, enough with the paid opinions — what are real patriotic god-fearing usurper-hating americans saying?:

back to the drawing board, GOP!!!!

someone needs to teach the GOP about youtube and other networking sites. from what i can tell, there's still no "official" GOP rebuttal video posted.

the first 10 minutes was a disaster. oh wait, the speech was only 10 mins long? well, i was hoping he would do well but did not impress. we need four things four years from now. personality, can give a speech, conservative, and can raise $500 million. i think the only person who can do all four is palin. i did not connect with jindal at all tonight and i don’t know if anyone else can raise %500 million.

jindal’s speech was a stinker. to begin with, i’m sick of hearing republicans going on and on about how the election of 0bama was so so historic. jindal’s delivery was poor, and his attempts at personalizing stories kind of fell flat. i’ve heard him speak before, he’s a smart guy, but he’s very dull. if he were to get the nomination in 2012 he’d draw mccain size crowds, maybe a bit bigger. bored, unenthusiastic crowds don’t volunteer, don’t donate, and sometimes don’t even vote. last i heard he’s only rejected $98 million of the stimulus for louisiana, which is just over ten percent. palin has rejected about 50 percent of the $1 billion offered her state. all she’s taking are for construction projects.

we have GREAT candidates but they keep being shown in an awful light. that’s the problem.

i've read about jindal for months now, but this is the first speech i've seen him make. an unmitigated disaster. ... jindal is off my list for potential 2012 nominee. which leaves...no one.

i heard jindal on the radio earlier today. sounded squishy. a republican should have gone on tonight and said: why have you spent over a million dollars keeping your birth certificate locked up? are you a natural-born citizen? are you even a citizen? since your grandfather, father, mother, and mentor, and all your associates since childhood have been communists—why aren’t you a communist? or are you? why have you seized control of the census? why have you given acorn $4 billion? isn’t there enough thuggery and vote fraud to satisfy you? of course the “stimulus bill” had no earmarks—it was 100% pork from beginning to end. earmarks are pork! if a bill is 100& pork, there’s no need for earmarks. why is the money supply shooting up like a moon rocket? and why have you spent over a million dollars keeping your birth certificate locked up? (i know—i want to see this question repeated.)

a record-breaking transition

and too long in coming ...

bush's final approval rating: 22 percent president bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new cbs news/new york times poll showing mr. bush's final approval rating at 22 percent. seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way mr. bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years. mr. bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago. the rating is far below the final ratings of recent two-term presidents bill clinton and ronald reagan, who both ended their terms with a 68 percent approval rating, according to cbs news polling. recent one term presidents also had higher ratings than mr. bush. his father george h.w. bush had an end-of-term rating of 54 percent, while jimmy carter's rating was 44 percent. harry truman had previously had the lowest end-of-term approval at 32 percent, as measured by gallup.

nation's hopes high for obama, poll shows obama will take office tuesday as the most popular incoming president in a generation. he also will enter the white house with a broad mandate to act that was missing when george w. bush was elected by the narrowest of margins in 2000. more than half of all americans have high hopes for his presidency, almost three-quarters of the public say obama's proposals will improve the struggling economy, and about eight in 10 have a favorable view of him — more than twice the percentage now holding positive views of bush. about seven in 10 say obama understands their problems, and a similar proportion say his victory gives him "a mandate to work for major new social and economic programs."

poll finds faith in obama, mixed with patience president-elect barack obama is riding a powerful wave of optimism into the white house, with americans confident he can turn the economy around but prepared to give him years to deal with the crush of problems he faces starting tuesday, according to the latest new york times/cbs news poll. ... as the nation prepares for a transfer of power and the inauguration of its 44th president, mr. obama’s stature with the american public stands in sharp contrast to that of president bush. mr. bush is leaving office with just 22 percent of americans offering a favorable view of how he handled the eight years of his presidency, a record low, and firmly identified with the economic crisis mr. obama is inheriting. more than 80 percent of respondents said the nation was in worse shape today than it was five years ago. by contrast, 79 percent were optimistic about the next four years under mr. obama, a level of good will for a new chief executive that exceeds that measured for any of the past five incoming presidents. and it cuts across party lines: 58 percent of the respondents who said they voted for mr. obama’s opponent in the general election, senator john mccain of arizona, said they were optimistic about the country in an obama administration. ... his favorable rating, at 60 percent, is the highest it has been since the times/cbs news poll began asking about him. overwhelming majorities say they think that mr. obama will be a good president, that he will bring real change to washington, and that he will make the right decisions on the economy, iraq, dealing with the war in the middle east and protecting the country from terrorist attacks. over 70 percent said they approved of his cabinet selections.

their god: 2, our god: 0

rev. arnold conrad:

i would also add, lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and november ... because their are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it's hindu, buddha, allah — that his opponent wins for a variety of reasons. and lord i pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're gonna think that their god is bigger than you ... if that happens. so i pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and election day.

see also: "prayers answered".

still waiting

well, it's been a whole week. i certainly hope mccain hasn't turned into some kind of sore loser, because i'm still waiting — along with the rest of the world, i'm sure — for him to tell us just how to win wars and how to catch bin laden.

the five stages of gop grief

four years ago conservatives, fundamentalists and neocons across the country were gloating.

tonight ... not so much, as testified by these assorted anecdotes from what could be a clinical casebook of right wing ideological collapse, collected from the out-patients commenters at the blog free republic:

stage 1) shock and denial:

Fox has done a terrible job in their reporting tonight. They are so proud of their computer equipment, they just can't run it. Brit is all over the place. Their website is worse

Has California come in? That's a lot of electoral votes. ANd we're giving it to Obama, because of Ohio exit polls?

DO NOT PANIC. THE POPULAR VOTE IS A VIRTUAL TIE.

MCCAIN CANNOT CONCEDE - CHALLENGE LEGALLY VOTE FRAUD EVERYWHERE, CHALLENGE LEGITIMACY OF BHO, HELL THROW IN THE UNNATURAL CITIZENSHIP. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! (DOESN'T OHIO HAVE TO WAIT 10 DAYS TO VERIFY ABSENTEE BALLOTS OF LIKE 200,000?)

stage 2) pain and guilt:

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America. I am so ashamed of Americans tonight.

If only those born in the US had voted, we would not be losing tonight.

Oh Lord, HAVE MERCY, PLEASE!!!!!! I am now feeling sick!

stage 3) anger:

ACORN has succeeded in stealing this election for the terrorist in chief.

Thank You W. - Hussien is your legacy! May your retirement be as bad as the Huseein Presidency will be for us. For the rest of you Bushes .. stay out of republican politics forever.

So much for Rove's PERMANENT MAJORITY..... ....the Hispanic vote went big for Obama.... ...New Mexico is no longer a red state..... ...Colorado and Arizona are trending left... how will we ever win an election in the future? Thank you George W. Bush and John Mccain for ruining our party with your open borders policy.

stage 4) depression:

Capitalism lasted longer than communism but in the end everyone settled on socialism. Bush should have at least gone down swinging and holding to his principals (That's what I hated about him in his first terms but what I miss about him right now)

It's over. It's been over. I have been the victim of my own wishful thinking. We're getting a terrorists buddy instead of a patriot. It is depressing.

Allow me to be the first to say with sadness: ALL HAIL KING HUSSEIN

I for one, welcome our new socialists overlords. Now, where's that bottle?

stage 5) acceptance and hope:

This is what you should all do now: Hug your wife and kids Pray to God and understand he has a plan Keep your guns close Get a good accountant to shelter your money It is true, that I never concieved such a day during my lifetime. But I still have faith in God, my family and friends.

They dug their own grave. The same goes for bipartisanship. Either way, the Republicans will never be relevant again without conservative leadership. Palin in 2012 is a start.

Anybody know a good militia I can join?

Amerika has just elected its first communist president - in fact, with a communist Congress, a complete communist government. Time to start understanding how to organize and lead a resistance movement.

With the union stuff coming we'll never be able to get back the congress. How long before Sharia law is implemented? The only saving grace I can think of now is that HRC does have proof that he is not eligible to be POTUS.

And there's always the possibility Israel acts tomorrow and the world nuclear war is on!

follow the money iv

the scene at virtual forecasting market intrade, election day morning:

election '08 market prices (last 7 days)

premortem

everyone seems to agree: the election is over. so there's no need to wait until wednesday for the postmortems.

everyone also seems to agree that we have a clear loser. to be expected, some beg to differ about why the loser lost:

when mccain cruises to an easy, early victory tuesday night, the pundits will be in disarray. they will be left scratching their heads, saying that the reason mccain won is that all the undecideds at the last minute broke for him, preferring the old, known crotchety guy over the charismatic unknown. it's all untrue but when did the truth ever deter the bsm (biased socialist media) from telling you want it wants you to believe? in order to win, zero [obama] had to do better among democrats than did john kerry. he didn't. here's why: zero never secured the democrat base. his first decision was fatal to his candidacy — he chose a bumbling, mediocre biden over party unity. had he selected hillary as his running mate, the ticket would have been a juggernaut. this fateful selection created the puma movement comprising — who knows? — thousands, millions of disaffected hillary supporters. this is the greatest unreported political fallout in media history. zero was a weak, unknown candidate propped up by the compliant bsm. all the evidence you need is this: no bounce from his thirty-minute infomercial that was intended to "close the deal." further, after spending more than $600 million dollars, he was still campaigning on the monday before the election in iowa, a neighbor to his home state of il, which he should have won by 20 points. a strong democrat candidate with a $600m warchest and this economy should win walking away. there'd be no chance for a mccain surge in the final days. give me a break. the reincarnation of the reagan democrats. they left the party when jimmah carter ran the second time and they left when zero burst on the scene. nevertheless, the bsm will spin these folks to have left for the all encompassing next reason: race. some democrats will reject their guy based on his race, or at least the black half of it. face it. it's a small percentage of the democrat party but, in order to win, zero had to hold onto every dem voter and he failed to do so. the bsm failed zero. as they always do, they went into protect mode, trying valiantly — if not honestly — to shield their chosen one from harm. had the media first done its job of vetting zero and, had he survived the vetting in the primaries, he would have been tested by fire and ready to win. instead, by treating him with kid gloves, the republican opposition was free to explore zero's past associations, his voting record, his years of drifting and lack of accomplishment; all raised doubts in the general election that should have been vetted long before it took place. unknowns like zero don't benefit by not being challenged. few people bought the outright lies zero told about his being pro second amendment. like so many other losing democrat candidates, zero had to run from his record but there was no place to hide. zero's opposition to illinois' born alive infant protection act. couple that with zero's statement to rick warren that determining when a baby is human is above his paygrade — well you've just created a tsunami of truth washing over your campaign. we are witnessing the greatest collapse by a major party candidate in history. now you know why it's happening.

i agree. we are witnessing a collapse of historic proportions, not just of a candidate, but of an entire party and its ideology. barack obama is fini—

huh?

follow the money iii

from my bookie to your ear:

a lawyer friend of mine deals with bankruptcy cases. he told me that in 30 years of practice, he's never seen a bankrupt bookie. with this in mind, check out the odds being offered on the two candidates by a large selection of bookmakers. obama is being offered at between 1/14 to 1/10 (you'd have to bet 14 dollars to win back 1 + your original bet). mccain is being offered by most bookies at 6/1 (you bet 1 dollar to get back 6 + your original bet). bookies are very rarely wrong. so although, like many of you, i won't truly relax until the election is over and has been declared for obama, i'm pretty sanguine that mccombover and the repugs are history.

top ten reasons for hope

as campaign season winds down to its inevitable conclusion, i find myself more and more drawn to the hypnotizing roadkill splattered up and down the virtual backroad that is the free republic blog, whose membership ("freepers") are well known and loved on the net as hardcore rightwing central.

and hypnotizing it is to behold: the anger, the sniping, the finger-pointing, the utter lack of recrimination ... verily, it is the jelly on a warm slice of schadenfreude.

but not everyone there has succumbed to wretched defeatism — in one of their famous "freep this poll!" threads already amusing enough for its own characteristic lack of irony, one undaunted poster laid down his 28 reasons obama "ain't won nothing yet. it was extremely tough choosing among so many clear winners, but i've pulled a choice ten for everyone's enjoyment.

so with a hearty hand to freeper rotb, i give you today's "freepers" top ten reasons to hope:

10) Polls are meant by the Enemedia, to SHAPE public opinion, not to accurately report it. Get your news here! Stop torturing yourself! We bring the liberal media lies here, and we dissect them through the lenses of Christianity and Conservatism.

9) The PUMAs who know the hows and whys of Hillary getting cheated, will vote Palin, and will pull others. ... Freeper lonestar67 says, “Surveys have suggested that as many as 20-30% of Democrats may vote for McCain based on the rejection of Hillary. If even fractions of these claims are true, Obama would be hard pressed to win the election— especially in key states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.”

8) Operation Chaos resulted in an overlarge quantity of Democrat registrations that will never ever vote Democratic.

7) McCain has only started to play the Ayers card. McCain has not yet played the Tony Rezko, Odinga, ...

6) McCain opened 50 offices in California. It’s in play! It should be the bluest of the blue, and it is not.

5) The Christian base that re-elected Bush in 2004, knows Sarah is more than a Sunday Christian, and is praying for her.

4) Three people over 50 (white male and two Mexican women), on two occasions, on October 25th, asked me if I know about Obama not being a citizen. My Dad knows, and he emailed all his friends also. Point being, EVERYBODY KNOWS that Obama ain’t benevolently and humbly forthcoming with his birth certificate, and thus something fishy is afoot in Camelot.

3) The Enemedia overstating Obama’s popularity will cut two ways. The lazy, and the youth, (core Democrat constituencies) will not brave traffic and lines to vote on election day, since they were lied to by the KGBMedia to believe that Obama has a gigantic lead. In fact, if I worked for the GOP, I’d make sure free beer/music parties were being held outside of every major blue city before/on election day. They’re called “raves”.

2) Obama has only 75% of the Jewish vote last I checked, just like Kerry (comfortable R win). Gore got 90% (close R win).

and finally, the number one reason all freepers can expect to see obama fall:

[ drumroll ]

1) Kerry won the Nickelodeon kids vote 57/43, and Obama won it 51/49! If you don’t think kids vote like their parents, then you got another thing coming!

don't freepers say just the most adorable things?

follow the money ii

the scene at virtual forecasting market intrade, one week out:

election '08 market prices (last 30 days)

couldn't agree more

let's just agree to disagree, shall we?

senator obama's supporters have been sayin' some pretty nasty things about western pennsylvania lately. [raucous extended boos] and y'know, i couldn't agree with 'em more! [virtual silence] i couldn't disagree ... with you ... i couldn't agree ... with you more ... than the fact that western pennsylvania is the most patriotic ...

david kurtz @ talking points memo:

you can see the glimmer of recognition of the flub, like he just chased road runner off the edge of the cliff. there's the split-second decision to try to pull off a miracle escape. but his legs stop spinning and gravity takes over and from there it's a long way down. for a guy who spent the last week reminding everyone he's not bush, that's got to hurt.

follow the money

the scene at virtual forecasting market intrade:

election '08 market prices (last 30 days)

just picture the candidates

and a new meme is born ...

asked and answered

dispirited die-hard republicans commiserate over mccain's non-game-changing performance at the second presidential debate and wonder:

why on earth would the mccampaign finally be hitting these issues on the trail, and then he didn’t say one word about it (again!) in the debate when he had the eyes of the nation??? it’s like the man wants to lose. ayres is an absolutely legitimate concern. the (imo very real) possibility that obama isn’t even a natural-born citizen is an absolutely legitimate concern. the fact that in four years he took more money from fannie mae than any senator in history except dodd, is an absolutely legitimate concern. and nobody — i’m not counting rush — is talking about the real reason behind the financial meltdown, which is the government holding a gun to the head of banks, forcing them to make affirmative action mortgage loans that had no chance of being repaid. [link mine]

juan cole volunteers one theory:

in the real world of political ads, mccain and his surrogates are shouting ugly insults at barack obama. he is accused is saying that us airstrikes have killed innocents. this is true and mccain said it, too. they say he was on a committee with a professor who used to be a weatherman 40 years ago. and ... ? how nonsensical these attacks are is demonstrated by the inability of mccain to repeat them to obama's face. what sort of allegation won't hold up in a debate? a flimsy one. one with the form of propaganda. mccain's nasty personal attacks on obama were apparently felt by his campaign to be inappropriate to a live appearance. they feared such smears would look mean in the mouth of a presidential aspirant.

update: even obama himself all but calls mccain a chickenshit on national tv:

i am surprised that, you know, we've been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the mccain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn't willing to say it to my face. but i guess we've got one last debate. so presumably, if he ends up feeling that he needs to, he will raise it during the debate.

update #2: now biden's piling it on out on the trail:

all of the things they said about barack obama in the tv, on the tv, at their rallies, and now on youtube ... john mccain could not bring himself to look barack obama in the eye and say the same things to him. in my neighborhood, when you've got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.

update #3: oh snap! you know it's getting ridiculous when even members of the gray panther cheerleading squad start breaking ranks:

king:

michelle, are you not supporting the ticket?

laxalt:

look, i think — i can't believe the tone of this conversation. here we are, three conservative, loyal republican women. and we are talking about a female who could be the vice president of the united states of america. in my estimation, she is being used unfairly as a tool by a team who, by the way, do not even support, nor does their candidate, equal pay for women for equal work. so if she is going to be the traditional vice presidential attack dog — which i concur with bay, that's very much a traditional role — why didn't her male running mate, i.e. the candidate himself, man up and speak to those issues, calling his opponent essentially unpatriotic, calling him a terrorist? i'm sorry. this is not the republican party that bill buckley, that paul laxalt, that ronald reagan raised me on. and i don't believe the american people like this kind of dirty politics. if they can't win fair and square, they shouldn't trash the other guy.

i must admit, it tickles me to hear a paleoconservative biddy like laxalt throw down a neologism like "man up" to challenge the head of her ticket.

how far the mighty have fallen! it was only three months ago that wesley clark was mercilessly excoriated by the mccain camp, the right wing noise machine and the mainstream talking heads for daring to question the mere idea that prisoner of war status isn't necessarily a qualification for the presidency, which cost clark his place in the obama campaign. back then mccain could count on the eager defense of the media to protect him from almost any legitimate inquiry.

but in that time mccain has foolishly sacrificed the centerpiece of the narrative of his entire campaign: his not-to-be-questioned integrity, a facade which he'd been carefully crafting for decades. he figured that he had built up so much house credit, especially with the media, that he could gamble away some negligible portion of his integrity on a bet that he could quickly and permanently tarnish obama. unfortunately for mccain, clinton gambled first and lost, leaving mccain with no cards to play. like the inveterate gambler he's reputed to be, mccain stubbornly doubled-down and bet his integrity on an empty hand, and predictably lost. and when his camp began to attack the media for acknowledging the nasty turn of his campaign, he drove away his best allies.

without his integrity, he no longer has a compelling story for the voters, and without the support of the media, he no longer has anyone to sell it for him, and he's been flailing and flopping and lurching about ever since for some other reason to justify the continued existence of his campaign.

which just reveals how hollow the enterprise is. this is a vanity campaign. it's all about him. its all about how ex-p.o.w. john mccain deserved to win. now that the sterling biography's gone, and worse, now that the collapsing economy is reminding voters that the election is all about the voters, he can't even articulate a coherent narrative or plan that focuses on their lives and how he intends to improve it. he's nothing left to sell them.

the only question left seems to be whether he'll lose like a gentleman. the answer isn't looking good.

i didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms i believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. in truth, i wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. ... in truth, i'd had the ambition for a long time. — john mccain, worth the fighting for (2002)

if you know what i mean

i'm not aware of too many things, but i know what i know, and i know what i mean, starting with the realization that, despite the fanfare of both her convention and debate performances, sarah palin has outlived her usefulness to the mccain campaign.

while her fate was in dire question after her disastrous interviews with charlie gibson and especially katie couric, her circus-animal-like barking of freshly-injected and barely-understood republican talking points cemented her place in the hearts of social conservatives everywhere — while driving fingernails into the brains of anyone to the left of bill o'reilly:

it's become clear that palin is not winning mccain new voters. instead, she's proven only able to keep an increasingly shrinking and increasingly repugnant hard right bloc from jumping ship.

unfortunately for mccain, when you're drowning, treading water is a tactic, not a strategy. neither is climbing on the other guy's back.

knowing what i know now, i feel confident enough to call a landslide victory for obama:

this is what a coalescing landslide election looks like on a distribution map of all possible election outcomes in the electoral college based on polling on oct 2. there is no part of the distrubtion across the red line, shutting out a mccain victory. the highest peak of obama's blue lines now reaches 14% and it is for more than 350 electoral votes.

at the end of the democratic primary, i wrote that whoever won would be the de facto next president and that november will be simply a formality. the primary was, in effect, the general election. i wrote that because i saw then no chance for a republican victory, and i see now too many obstacles stacked against mccain, and none greater than his loss of credibility and even respect of the public, which was famously the best thing he had going for him.

in his attempt to alienate the voters from obama, mccain has only alienated them from mccain. and without any new muck to rake up for the voters, who found the old muck wanting when they heard it from clinton, mccain can only pointlessly sink further into the cesspit he's still digging for himself. still, there may yet be time for his loved ones to stage an intervention with some long-postponed straight talk:

lose with grace, you stupid bastard.

... that is, if the man wants to exit the stage with a semblance of his soul intact.

as for sarah, i predict for her a long career as a conservative darling and political footnote, someone republicans can always call on to help fill shrinking convention halls with downcast party apparatchiks looking for a little spunk, eye candy and stream-of-consciousness right-wing poetry.

so with a nod and a wink, this vid's for you, moose gal:

the palin principle

pa•lin prin•ci•ple

the principle demonstrated when an organization promotes one or more individuals so far above their level of competence as to precipitate or hasten its own sorry demise.

the ultimate culmination of the peter principle.

origin sept 2008: named after governor of alaska sarah palin, whose nomination as the republican vice presidential candidate, despite initial fanfare, ultimately proved to be the undoing of the presidential aspirations of her nominator john mccain, as well as the undoing of their party, likely for decades to follow. see also:

ti•be•ri•us gam•bit

an attempt by an unpopular leader to rehabilitate his failed legacy by naming as his successor a person so corrupt and/or incompetent that the predictably disastrous reign to follow makes his own epic failure look like an epic win in comparison.

origin sept 2008: named after the unpopular roman emperor tiberius, who named as his successor his capricious and probably insane grandson gaius caligula, who in turn instituted a reign of terror of the like even rome had never seen.

mccain's nomination of the laughably inadequate palin as his vice president has to be the first time i've ever seen anyone preemptively slap down a tiberius gambit even before they've become president.

the term first appeared on the blog hullabaloo.

so let's see what johnny's won, shall we?

ol' mcflopsweat is proving himself to be the all-time dojo master of the pyrrhic victory. he always manages to steal the headlines from obama, but at the cost of horrible, horrible press.

his first big victory was the night of obama's primary victory, when he got roundly panned for his lame "green screen" speech.

then his veep pick stole some of the shine from the close of the dem convention, but palin got roundly panned in the press.

now he's rushing to get out in front of the big bailout, but now even letterman's roundly piling on.

mcflopsweat says he "knows how to win wars", which i guess is easy if you're willing to pay any price ...

john farrell, usnews:

... it is still instructive to review mccain's actions in the last two days, to see why the notion of him as president is now alarming even some republicans. after making the hasty announcement wednesday that he was suspending his presidential campaign to rush to washington and lead the bickering sides to a bipartisan agreement, mccain did no such thing. instead, he spent wednesday night and much of thursday in new york, trying, self-servingly, to get on television. ... did mccain roll up his sleeves and put his magical maverick bipartisan skills to work? did he help get the members of his own party on board? build a bridge or two across the aisle? stick it to the wall street greedheads, as he had promised, by capping the money they can make in this bailout? no. mccain closeted himself with his advisers and tried to find a way to salvage his rapidly deteriorating political position. then it was time for the white house photo op, which mccain had so coveted. and what does mr. suspend my campaign for the good of the country do? he goes awol.

ej dionne, washington post:

mccain's boisterous intervention — and particularly his grandstanding on the debate — was less a presidential act than the tactical ploy of a man worried that his chances of becoming president might be slipping away.

evansville courier & press (in):

mccain's action was a diversionary tactic and a rather crass one at that. he was not one of the key senate negotiators needed to hammer out a congressional deal on the bailout. he could vote up-or-down on the bill and still debate.

jeffrey toobin, cnn:

well, can i just quarrel with the premise of this? who says he suspended his campaign? he didn’t suspend his campaign. he’s been campaigning all day. he gave a speech in new york. he’s giving interviews all night. he’s raising money. his surrogates are attacking barack obama. i think this is posturing of being apolitical. and, frankly, i think we’re being kind of gullible in falling for it. he didn’t stop his campaign. he’s campaigning. now whether it’s successful or not ... ... he didn’t pull his ads down. his ads have been on. and he’s done exactly what obama has done all day. and obama admits that he’s campaigning. it’s the middle of the campaign. i don’t see why we should treat what he’s doing as anything different from what obama is doing.

jack cafferty, cnn:

cafferty:	i'm sixty-five and have been covering politics as you have for a long time. that is one of the most pathetic pieces of tape i have ever seen for someone aspiring to one of the highest offices in this country. that's all i have to say. ...
blitzer:	yeah, but she's ... cramming a lot of information, y'know she's —
cafferty:	that's just — there's no excuse for that! she's supposed to know a little bit of this! y'know ... don't make excuses for her! that's pathetic!

duncan black, eschaton:

i'm actually a little sympathetic to palin. her problem isn't so much that she speaks in gibberish, the problem is that she doesn't speak in official washington gibberish. john mccain spouts gibberish all the time, as do all politicians, but it's often the kind of gibberish which is part of the beltway dialect. it's pundit-approved gibberish. whether or not it makes any sense is irrelevant. whatever palin's knowledge of domestic or foreign affairs, her biggest problem is that she's obviously completely unfamiliar with the basic contours of the core political discourse of our country. gibberish is fine as long as it's the right kind of gibberish.

kathleen parker:

it was fun while it lasted. ms. palin's recent interviews with charles gibson, sean hannity and now katie couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. who is clearly out of her league. ... what to do? mr. mccain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. he not only risks the wrath of the gop's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. ... only ms. palin can save mr. mccain, her party and the country she loves. she can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. no one would criticize a mother who puts her family first. do it for your country.

kathryn jean lopez, national review online:

i’m not where my friend kathleen parker is — wanting her to step aside to spend more time with her family and alaska — but that’s not a crazy suggestion.

david letterman, late night, nbc:

sure there's an economic crisis, but here's what you do if you're running a campaign in the middle of an economic crisis, and it's about to 'crater' ... don't suspend your campaign. you let your campaign go on shouldered by your vice presidential nominee. that's what you do. you don't quit! ... or is that a really good thing to do? see what i’m saying?

... when john mccain — and he was nice enough to call me on the phone and said that he was racing back to washington — our people here were told, so serious, he's getting on a plane immediately and racing back to washington. and now we've just been told ... here, take a look — do we have it on the thing? this is going live ... there he is right there. [monitor shows live feed of mccain having makeup touches for a cbs news interview with katie couric] doesn't seem to be racing to the airport, does he? this just gets uglier and uglier. i'm feeling bad for the man to have participated in this ... first of all, the road to the white house runs right through me. well, let's just punch up katie couric's interview and keith, you can go back to wherever you came from ... let's just see what he has to say here. this will be interesting. ... let's see if he'll mention me. hey, john, i got a question — do you need a ride to the airport? now, this stinks.

charles babington, associated press:

even for a party whose president suffers dismal approval ratings, whose legislative wing lost control of congress and whose presidential nominee trails in the polls, it was a remarkably bad day for republicans.

poodles and pitchforks

after eight years of cuddling at the decider's feet, have the media poodles become terriers?

sounds like mcworse has neglected feeding the pets, after waving treats in their faces for weeks ...

bear with me for a short rant on another subject, because frankly, i have had it and i know a lot of other women out there are with me on this. i have had enough of the sexist treatment of sarah palin. it has to end. she was here in new york city today meeting with world leaders at the u.n. and what did the mccain campaign do? they tried to ban reporters from covering those meetings. and they did ban reporters from asking governor palin any questions. tonight i call on the mccain campaign to stop treating sarah palin like she is a delicate flower that will wilt at any moment. this woman is from alaska for crying out loud. she is strong. she is tough. she is confident. and you claim she is ready to be one heart beat away form the presidency. if that is the case, then end this chauvinistic treatment of her now. allow her to show her stuff. allow her to face down those pesky reporters, just like barack obama did today. just like john mccain did today. just like joe biden has done on numerous occasions. let her have a real news conference with real questions. by treating sarah palin different from the other candidates in this race, you are not showing her the respect she deserves. free sarah palin. free her from the chauvinistic chain you are binding her with. sexism in this campaign must come to an end. sarah palin has just as much a right to be a real candidate in this race as the men do. so let her act like one.