I Was Inspired

. . . by the sight, and felt moved to create.

Education Incidental: A Richly Hyphenated Observation 

of Back-to-School Day at the University of Oklahoma

Like a Great Plains locust plague on this college town the style-sneakered thousands descend. Coiffed, care-less, clothed with class, toting their pricey impedimenta in their pricier SUVs or shiny new pickups--Okie Cadillacs—or better-car-than-most at the least . . . unless, that is, parents perform chauffeuring duties, loaded-down Dads, puffing through parking lots in scalding heat like dray Ban-Lon beasts; Moms fussing with the little dear’s checklist of must-have-for-today’s-student stuff: dorm-room-ready fridge, microwave, TV, lamps, luggage, rugs, snack-and-sweets-laden groceries galore, and endless electronica: laptops, notebooks, iPhones, iPads, iPods, XBoxes, headsets, Gameboys, and video cams—and lest the rigors of frivolity momentarily wane, portable DVD players and a small stash of Daddy's cash to ease the pain. Tears aplenty at the parting. On their own now: in the heart of the don’t-know-crap-and-don’t-know-it years. Beer-soaked, hormone-stoked, soon-to-be debt-racked, oblivious as goalposts on a field of dreams.

The Lingering Odor of Betrayal

In connection with yesterday's report of Obama's decision to all oil exploration of offshore areas, there's been a good deal of outcry from the environmentally aware as well as committed progressives who have felt stomped on by Obama ever since they voted for "change" back in those ancient days of 2008. One of the respondents to the Obama speech, which was published in TPM, ran down the litany of Obama flip-flops (or betrayals, if you favor harsher language). He calls himself oleeb, and he writes a blog--strongly anti-war, from all appearances--in response to TPM postings.

Why Barrack Obama is as Republican as any Republican

(according to ooleb & in his words)

• Open ended continuation of two pointless and costly wars that are bankrupting our nation.
• 100% Adoption of the Republican bailout plan for Wall Street.
• 100% adoption of illegal Republican domestic spying policies, torture, refusal even to investigate known war crimes, continuation of illegal indefinite detainment policies and wholesale abandonment of the rule of law in favor of a metastasizing national security state.
• Enactment nationally of the Republican Mitt Romney Healthcare Plan from Massachusetts except it isn't as good as the plan Romney got passed in Massachusetts.
• Support for the Republican wet dream of more reliance on nuclear power which will require massive public subsidies for private utility companies.
• More militarism and an open ended promise to continue real growth of 3-4% for the military for the foreseeable future even though we spend more on "defense" than all the other nations on earth combined.
• Another Republican wet dream: a special commission tasked with devising a politically acceptable scheme to dismantle and destroy Social Security. [Baysage observes: I have not heard about this one.]
• Republican offshore oil drilling policies accompanied by bullshit rhetoric about how this will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

Lest anyone get the idea that because I blast the Republican party frequently and vigorously, I am any great fan of Barack Obama and the Democrats, please disabuse yourself of that notion. The list above is a pretty good start on the list of reasons why.

Senator Franken (Finally)

I have just seen notice that Democrat Al Franken's election to the U.S. Senate has been affirmed by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican, has been fighting the result of the polls in November ever since then. But today he conceded the election. And the proper certification will be issued by the certification board or whatever it is today. Word is that he will not be able to take his seat till next week because of the July 4 break. It's about frigging time! Only eight months later the used up Republicans are admitting they lost another seat.

An this is an important one. It's going to give Obama a solid 60 votes when the two independents who vote with the Democrats are added.

Two Dollops of Idiocy

Dollop One: You keep telling yourself that it cannot possibly get worse. And then you come across reports like this. Then, with a sinking feeling, you conclude that yes, it can get a lot worse. It's my basic optimistic nature--despite what you might think--that causes me to keep hoping that there's actually a bottom to the abyss of ignorance in this country. But all the evidence indicates that the pit is bottomless. A Harris/Gallup poll released today reports that 37 percent of American respondents could not identify America on a map of America! Just let that number sink in for a moment. Almost four in ten Americans can be presented with the map above, and when asked to show where America is they indicate places like all those red dots. 40 percent! And yes, the title "America" was situated above the depiction as you see. And it also appeared in the color legend box where blue was identified America. How is this possible? I can't help but wonder where the hell these pollsters find such people? Then I'm chastened to recall that scientific polling ensures a completely representative demographic of respondents.

Well, at least 67 percent of us got this question right. Whew! -- But not so fast. Here's what happened on follow-up questions.

"Of the respondents actually capable of pinpointing America on the map of America, their accuracy decreased considerably with each additional query about the country. Asked for the name of the U.S. capital, those polled placed Washington, D.C., fifth behind “Minneapolis-St. Paul,” “Mount Rushmore,” “America City” and “Whitewater.” Further, when quizzed on when America declared independence from Great Britain to become a sovereign nation, more than two-thirds replied: “six thousand years ago, when God created humankind.”

Good God in heaven (which is somewhere around Duluth, one supposes)! What can you say . . . really? Arrrgghh! is about the only appropriate response.

Dollop Two: I honestly cannot imagine this abomination in any other state but Oklahoma. I guess it's the best thing all the disappointed McCain supporters here can think of to make themselves feel better. At the same time, it's a measure of the isolation Democrats feel here constantly. I attended a meeting of Obama supporters during the campaign, and the most constant theme I heard from everyone was: "Isn't it great to be in a room with all these Democrats?" Indeed. (And at the very least we're having a merrier political Christmas than all these Okies who voted red in November.)

Free Press

The stuff you can find on the Net! I found this site a few days ago and made a note to put it up. So here it is: images of the front pages of 735 newspapers from all over the world on November 5. Here's what I discovered about the U.S. papers: There were hundreds of ways of hailing the Obama win. "Yes He Can" "It's Obama" "History!", etc. But there were only a few ways to downplay it. The Rockville Citizen of Conyers, GA, did its best; so did the Lake Sun (Camdenton, Missouri). The Moscow-Pullman Daily News (Idaho) had the most oblique reference to the national election results: "Now Comes the Hard Part" proclaimed the story of Obama's win. You wouldn't think it would be possible to find a U.S. paper that managed to ignore the results of the election completely on its front page. You'd be wrong. Check out The Mississippi Press (Pasgagoula). You cannot even tell an election took place from this front page, which contains stories about a local cop, adult literacy, and results of the Halloween photo contest. What kind of editor runs a paper like this? Is he wrapped in the Confederate flag? What kind of readership supports a paper like this? Amazing!

Motes & Planks

I am a Catholic, and just as I am in politics, I am on the left-wing of the Church. It's a lonely position out here. There aren't many of us around, at least not in my neighborhood. As I've often observed, many of the best have already left. The Council of Vatican II which ended in 1965, was for my generation an event of glorious empowerment for the people in the pews, an event that ushered in real intellectual probing and excitement about a host of subjects from theology to Scripture studies to social justice. It was for me and perhaps millions of others our defining moment as Catholics. Indeed, but for the Council and my continued faith that its ideals may someday prevail, a faith sorely tried most of the time, I would not be a Catholic at all. But I have to confess, the Catholic bishops are bringing me to the brink.

Ever since Vatican II, the church has been oh so steadily retrenching. I sometimes think that many Catholics would be perfectly content to revert back to the "good ole days" of pray, pay, and obey, when the world was black and white, and Father knew all the answers. Exactly the days I don't ever want to see again in the Church. I'm not so sure the American bishops don't want it this way, however. During the long pontificate of John Paul II, the only bishops he appointed in the U.S.--and presumably elsewhere--were nice, safe, don't-rock-the-boat theologically conservative duds whose chief qualification for the episcopate was a disposition to obey Rome without murmur on everything and the ability to pass the theological litmus test. And a key component of that test was the question of abortion. Everybody knows where the church is on that: no way, no how, for no reason whatever.

The bishops have been fairly visible lately. Some of the more vocal ones all but endorsed John McCain in the presidential election, arguing that the abortion issue trumped all the others in the election. The rigid one-issue approach to elections has been tried before, and not only failed but has been counter-productive, as the National Catholic Reporter pointed out. Certainly common sense and urging from the left and center didn't stop some bishops from fulminating about abortion and the election. The bishop of St. Louis told his people that voting for Obama endangered their eternal salvation. If this is true, a sizeable number of Catholics decided to risk hell itself during this election. Fifty-four percent of Catholics voted for Mr. Obama., including the Hispanic voters, the so-called "future of the American church," who were overwhelmingly for him.

None of this should have come as any great surprise. As New York Times columnist Peter Steinfels observed:

Many Catholics may understandably feel that the bishops are talking out of both sides of their mouths: Catholics are not supposed to be single-issue voters, but, by the way, abortion is the only issue that counts. The bishops do not intend to tell Catholics how to vote; but, by the way, a vote for Senator Obama puts your salvation at risk. Catholics are to form their consciences and make prudential judgments about complex matters of good and evil -- just so long as they come to the same conclusions as the bishops.

Come now the 250 or so bishops at their annual conference in Washington, D.C. and the prelates almost to a man, according to various accounts (see here, here, and here) rose up to castigate Obama and the prospect of a Democratically-sponsored abortion rights bill. (Not a good idea, in my opinion. Why is this necessary? I don't think there's any point in mollifying the pro-abortion radicals in the party at the cost of alienating the vast, vast majority of people who are in the center on this issue.) Although it's widely believed that such a measure will not and could not pass, just the prospect of such a thing got the bishops up in arms. They were also having none of the "common good" approach to the abortion question. Advocates of this approach say that, rather than focusing on outlawing abortion, i.e., overturning Roe v. Wade, the singular and manifestly unsuccessful approach the bishop's have employed ever since the decision in 1973, the goal should be to reduce abortions by strengthening the social and economic safety net to enable more women to bring their pregnancies to term. This is the plank in the Democratic party platform. And progressive Catholics across the board support this strategy.

But to judge from the frenzied response of the bishops, you would think that the party had endorsed pedophilia . . . wait a second: aren't these the same guys who basically did that very thing for years and years--repeatedly reassigning priests accused of pedophilia or taking no action at all on complaints, something that happened right here in Oklahoma--until they got caught with their pants down, and the whole nasty scandal broke in 2002? (Of the many web sites documenting this scandal among the best are the Boston Globe site, Religious Tolerance site, and Wikipedia. The bishop's own report (USCCB) is here.) Aren't these the same guys who postured and pontificated about how they were going to "reform" their dioceses to eradicate and prevent these despicable crimes from ever happening again, and who--certainly not all but many among them--have stonewalled investigations, sequestered church records, and employed legions of lawyers to avoid accountability for allowing priest abusers to run rampant for decades across the country? Isn't this the same pack of self-righteous dispensers of moral guidance who have escaped justice themselves? You can read in horrifying and repulsive detail about the extent of these crimes, many of which are still in litigation at this web site. There you will discover that aside from the sacrificial lamb Bernard Cardinal Law, who was forced to leave the diocese of Boston and landed a more cushy job in Rome, and the three bishops who either resigned or were indicted for being pedophiles themselves, not a single one of these American bishops has lost his job for their subordination of crimes and their gross malfeasance in moral leadership. Not a single one of these guys has paid the price for his crimes. They're still eating off their china, drinking fine wines, being chauffeured around in their limousines, conferencing in their swank hotel, and preaching to the rest of us what's right and what's wrong.

These are the people who pretend to prescribe morality for the rest of us? I have observed more than once that it's relatively easy to oppose abortion. You don't risk any political ramifications with a friendly administration in power. Even now, with an incoming administration that's pro-choice, standing against abortion runs no real political risk. But what you don't see is these bishops risking the wrath of the government or their steady source of income from the pews by standing up forcefully against the widely and uncritically accepted American agenda: preservation of the empire and untrammeled, near-pathological individualism. You don't hear them preaching against the war in Iraq or against the obscene military budget of the US or the gross inequity of income distribution in this country. You don't hear them forcefully advocating for universal health care or railing against our country's budget priorities. No, they are not going to rock the boat against the administration. Indeed, as long as the government postures against abortion even though it doesn't really do anything about it, the bishops keep their peace.

Jesus, a guy who knew about honest and love of neighbor, said: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" (Mt 7:3) Precisely so! The hypocrisy of these guys is just astounding.

Barbie's Brain

. . . it's a terrible thing not to have. Just got through reading a piece in The Huffington Post about Sarah Palin. Now that the campaign is over, details about all the nasty in-fighting between the Palin and McCain staffs is coming to light, as well as this latest intelligence (I use the term advisedly.) about the Alaskan Barbie. You really have to shake your head in wonderment about how such a person could get anywhere near being on a national ticket for anything, much less vice president of the United States. Lest anyone think this is just dirt from the socialistic left, I hasten to assure them that no, this news is from Fox--the O'Reilly Factor, no less--who we all know is fair and balanced about everything. So specifically, Ms Palin apparently didn't know Africa is a continent! Nor was she entirely clear about the basics of how the government operates. Civics 101 stuff. Didn't know about the concept of "American exceptionalism." Moreover, she is also a bitch from hell to work for, and her beleagured staff took tons of abuse.

If you watch the video, don't miss O'Reilly trying to dismiss her igonorance by saying something along the lines of: well, she is not a stupid woman; she could be tutored to learn these things. Are you kidding me? Where do you start with the tutoring of a woman who doesn't know that South Africa is not the southern part of a country? With Big Bird and the letter H? [For "harridan," one surmises.]

Self-Inflicted Wound

Why do I do this to myself? I don't need this. I've probably wasted an hour of my precious time. I couldn't stifle my curiosity to sample the opinion of yesterday's losers, our McCain brothers and sisters. So I googled "conservative blogs" and randomly chose one called "little green footballs" and then I tracked to a thread containing reaction to Obama's victory speech last night. What a mistake. All this accomplished was stoke my disdain for these people. And then trigger something like resignation that bi-partisan concern and cooperation in dealing with the serious issues the country faces will never occur.

I simply cannot believe the vitriol and hatred these people are spewing. Go look for yourself. Be sure and slide down the long thread of over 600 responses--and remember this is just one of who knows how many similar sites with similar conversations going on.

Problem was, it was like being secretly drawn to look at Holocaust footage or automobile accidents . . . once I started reading post after post of bile, ridicule, hatred, raving, I couldn't stop. Obama, who is from all indications the real deal, a man who is serious about building bridges to the other side, is being called every name you can think of: Marxist, communist, socialist, SOB, "Hussein the twit," "smarmy ingrate," "ass hole [sic]," "radical," and a lot more. The racism is ill-disquised: talk about Kwanzaa trees . . . this lovely question about Michelle Obama: "can we call her "First < >"? (and he explains the deletion wasn't a cuss word).

You have to read this stuff to believe it. I know I must sound naive, but I never read so much of this tripe before in one sitting. It's revolting taken in that kind of dose. One prevailing sentiment on this blog is that they are not about to cooperate with the Democrats and will oppose everything. Another is that the media is responsible for making Obama president. There's lots of talk: about 2010, about guarding their wallets, blasting Michelle. They really, really hate Jack Murtha and Al Franken.

In fairness, I have to report encountering a few people who urged that at least the office of the president be respected, but they were rare indeed. And most of the time were met with some response like: "he's not my president."

Get ready, people. These nuts are not going to go away. It's all so very discouraging . . . and we're just a little over 24 hours since the election.

Yes, We Can

I was born in Mississippi and raised in New Orleans during the 1940s and 50s. I learned racism like I learned the ABC's, at the feet of my mom and dad, all over my neighborhood, all over my family, all over my school, all through my brain. Segregation was relentlessly reinforced in word, thought, and deed. In short, I grew up with all the ugly prejudices of my section of the country. I never gave it a thought; I never even questioned segregation until I came of age in the 1960s, and Martin Luther King stirred the consciences of anybody who had one. That was just the way things were supposed to be. The idea that a black man could become president of the U.S., why, pigs would fly before that.

Which is why I think the results of today's election deserve a moment or two of profound and respectful silence. Something monumental has happened. This country, a place founded and nurtured on slavery for almost 250 years, a place which only 44 years ago years ago passed legislation allowing African Americans to eat in the same restaurants as white people, a place celebrated for its seemingly ineradicable racism has just elected an African American president of the United States. It blows me away.

I cannot tell you how happy I am for every single black person in our country. The country has flashed an unmistakable sign of how total black integration into American society is. I saw several black people crying tonight as Obama delivered his magnificent victory speech. I was tempted to weep myself. I never thought I would live to see this. It's going to take a few days for me to process what's just happened. Without question, this election is historic. It's signifcance can only be glimpsed right now. I believe this was a watershed election in our history, along the order of 1860 or 1896 or 1932, elections when the country made critical choices about what kind of country it was going to be.

Tonight the sky is full of pigs on the wing, all of them grinning from ear to ear, bobbing and weaving in graceful flight.

Hoping

'Twas the night before voting and all through my house we're anticipating a victory for Barack Obama and the American people tomorrow --yes, I've actually allowed myself to be optimistic--with an end to the worst presidency in the history of this country. And a repudiation of the crack-brained ideas foisted upon us by the so-called Great Communicator Ronald Reagan. A great communicator of nonsense to the masses of ignorant Americans who actually believed that it was morning in America, that market forces were indeed divine, that government was the problem, that regulation of corporations was the epitome of foolishness. Amazingly, we still have people who believe such nonsense.

These are the same people, millions of 'em, who have bought into the McCain-Palin bile-drenched and venomous campaign lies. McCain, who knew he stood not a chance winning by running either on the issues or his record, has waged a campaign of vituperation and slander from the beginning. You're familiar with all the false charges: Obama is a socialist, that he consorts with terrorists, that he wants to teach explicit sex to kindergartners, that he is a Muslim, and yada, yada.

Can you believe that anyone could believe this crap? It's difficult to believe, but millions do. Reagan's snake oil about everything being fine simply would not play, not in this wreck of a country that the vile little fraud in the White House has left us. No, McCain and Palin needed stronger stuff. So what they've done is traffic constantly in fear. And they've embodied that fear in the person of Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, this tactic works on lots of people. (Somebody a lot less kind than I observed that the McCain campaign was "seemingly aimed at voters who would have trouble qualifying for the Special Olympics.") They have succeeded in activating the lizard brains out there to such an extent that people wearing Obama t-shirts are physically endangered simply by being in the sight of McCain supporters . I think this is just a symptom of how deluded people are. It's ugly, and it's no surprise. If you're going to sit on the fear button and make it ring non-stop, what exactly do you expect? You're going to get a mindless mob. People are going to go out of their heads and revert to the basic American archtype: a mindless purveyor of violence. I'm certain John McCain doesn't intend this, but he's been pretty meek about condemning it. And Sarah Palin has done nothing to discourage it from what I can see.

For goodness sake, let's vote the better angels of our nature tomorrow.

Are You Joking?

Get a load of these questions that one Barbara West, a so-called reporter for the ABC affiliate in Orlando, put to Joe Biden:

• If Biden is "embarrassed about the blatant attempt to register phony voters by ACORN," since Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., worked with the organization in the past;
• If Obama's comment about wanting tax policies that "spread the wealth" is "a potentially crushing political blunder";
• "You may recognize this famous quote: 'from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.' That's from Karl Marx. How is Sen. Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?";
• Regarding Biden's comment that the world would test Obama and the Obama-Biden administration will need the support of Americans since it might not be immediately apparent Obama did the right thing -- "Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and America's days as the world's leading power are over?"
• "What do you say to the people that are concerned that Barack Obama will want to turn America into a Socialist country like Sweden?"

At one point--the Marx quote--Biden responded, "Are you joking? Is this a joke, or is that a real question?" Indeed, how else are you to respond to such a question? There are only two explanations for this line of questioning by an alleged member of the journalistic profession. First, blatant partisanship, or, second, profound stupidity. Either is possible in Orlando, Florida. Or a two-fer: stupid and partisan. You take your pick. (Another account of this plus video is here.)

And before you dismiss stupidity as an explanation, read Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason, which makes it clear, that that explanation cannot be dismissed lightly. So, too, with the defense of this silly woman West by her news director. According to him, this was "hard-hitting journalism." What are you going to do in media climate like this?

Break Out the Ice Pack

Tonight there's another so-called presidential debate. Thank God it's the last one. I will watch, of course--I can't help myself--and grind my teeth at the uselessness of it. If these guys do not focus on the economy with everything going down the toilet, what's the point?

But I have no faith that we're likely to hear anything but the same echoing line of crap that I've been hearing from both sides for weeks. McCain will refuse to address the issues, and I suspect we might sense the desperateness of his campaign in the attacks he's bound to make. Obama will remain icily cool, but he won't say anything new.

I confess I have no clue what should be done about this economic debacle, and it bothers me that there's nothing like a consensus that I can see in everything I'm reading. Fact is, our current situation is not like 1929. It's like 2008, i.e., we've not been here before, and the economists and political leaders are going to have to devise something for to fix this unique problem. Why does this make me extremely nervous?

Ice pack, please!

The Snore & the Whore

Why do I watch the damn debates? I ask myself that at every one. I'm remembering now those years in the '60s and '70s when we didn't have to endure these debates. Talk about an unrecognized blessing.

These productions are not debates. These are TV theater, and very bad theater at that. I refuse to even acknowledge that these "debates" have a "winner" or "loser." Why? Because I'm basically an idiot for expecting intellectual respectability in addressing serious and crucially important questions. What a joke. First off, rarely is the question posed actually answered. And as for "debate," nothing is contested or explained or examined or understood. The standard fare that the candidates have been dispensing for months is simply chewed again and regurgitated on cue. I just can't take these tired sound bytes seriously, and I wonder how otherwise respectable commentators can sit around and discuss these things with any kind of gravitas whatever.

The "debate" last night, in so-called town meeting format, bored the life out of me. Honestly. Watching paint dry would have been more interesting than a reprise in the round of the same old crap we've been hearing for weeks on end. (And didn't all those people in Sections A through F look like they were having fun?) Which is exactly what we got. By the blessed end of these charades next week, half the country should be able to repeat great swathes of the memorized, but not memorable, talking points from both candidates.

Given the situation the country is in, the worst economic shape ever in the history of our country, not to mention the world shaking on its foundations, the two candidates for president spent all of about 5-6 minutes on the subject. What possibly could be of more relevance and importance than the economic future of the country? But no, we were soon back to a retread of what's by now become stock questions and the same stock answers. Health care, "he's going to raise your taxes," Iraq and frigging surge, and Pakistan. Not that these issues are not important. It's just that the demand for something palatable on television for the near-mindless masses trivializes and debases practically everything that appears on the tube.

I will say this. Barrack Obama is head and shoulders a cooler, more erudite, better informed, and skillful speaker and thinker than John McCain, who always appears on the edge of rage when he's not talking and clumsy when he is. What new thing did we hear? McCain learned everything he knows from a Navy chief? Well, if that's the case, we're really in trouble. But that would be nothing compared to our troubles if John McCain became president of this country. He's a war-monger, every bit as dangerous as the vile little fraud in the White House, if not more so because if, may the gods prevent it, he became president, it would be at a time of unprecedented economic upheaval. And a perfect time to distract the country with another war.

What a whore this man is! An old, lying whore. He would sell off anything to advance himself; he's clearly not stopped at selling off what honor he had and his soul. All of that was on display last night. It's a wonder Obama can sit there and listen to the torrent of lies McCain tells without punching the old bastard in the snoot. He would richly deserve it. Speaking of lies, there's a long piece in Rolling Stone that puts the lie to just about every John McCain myth you've ever heard. The title is the message: "Make Believe Maverick" I commend it; even if it's only half true--and it's got a lot more truth than that--we shouldn't be electing John McCain to a local school board. Take look also at "The Double Talk Express," which will point out nine instances of Mr McCain completely reversing earlier and sometimes admired positions on issues ranging from Bush tax cuts to torture.

Here's a guy who's benefited from a truly benign and, at one point, near-fawning press, a press and media that still doesn't take this guy to task for falsehood. Here's a self-proclaimed "maverick" who has not deviated from party line for years, and who now disavows it all and embraces the nonsense of the noisy Republican right. He needs to be kicked aside so some grownups can take over running the country.

Bimbo Survives

I really have no idea why I watch the Presidential Debates, so-called. I haven't missed many since I started watching them years ago. Why do I waste my time? One generalization I can make about all of them, no exclusions, is that they are not debates in any sense of the word in English. The candidates stand there and mouth talking points most often only loosely connected with the question that was asked.

Which brings us to the subject of Thursday night's "debate" between the vice presidential candidates. Here's the flash: Sarah Palin survived. Yes, along with all the other millions, I was there in front of the tube to see if Sarah Palin, the Alaskan bimbo, would live up to the potential she displayed in the Katie Couric interviews. In my opinion, she did . . . only she wasn't as deliciously vacuous as then. Of course, this was to be expected. This woman really hasn't got a clue. One of those pleasently-packaged people who manages to skate by serious scrutiny from other people who cannot get beyond the surface trifle.

But maybe it's better to stay there on the surface. Seriously. Because this woman is grossly deficient in any quality you would expect in an actual aspirant for the vice presidency of the United States. A common reaction among the pundits was that Palin did much better than expected, didn't terminally embarrass herself and sink the McCain ticket right on the spot--which is the ultimate in damning with faint praise. See here, here, and here, for just a few examples. Others were scathing in their appraisal of the woman's ineptness: here, here, and here.

I agree with both these camps: yes, she managed to stagger through the 90 minutes without completely discrediting herself, but, my God, she was otherwise awful. Did not directly answer any of the questions put to her, completely ignored some, constantly filled the air with the misleading if not completely false talking points pumped into her head over the past few days by her (probably desperate) handlers. Drove me crazy with her unrelenting cuteness and folksy blather--"doggone it"--and that phony aw-shucks-I'm-just-like-all-the-rest-of-you facade. Well, she ain't anything like anybody else except ignorant, Bible-beating suburbanites who actually have SUVs to drive kids to soccer, whose husbands actually have jobs, who work at what they do "outside the home" for "self-fulfillment," and who think gays are hell-bound, and God's going to take care of everything. (You know who they are: you saw them in all their splendor screaming "USA! USA!" and "Sarah! Sarah!" at the Republican convention.) And you just know that the phrase "Say it ain't so, Joe," was on her pre-programmed program to insert sometime during the evening. Sure enough, she got it in. My poor wife had to listen to my raving at the TV screen several times during the debate.

David Brooks, conservative NY Times pundit and Lehrer Newshour commentator, like many of his GOP colleagues, congratulated Palin for not self-immolating before the millions. This excellent Glenn Greenwald piece takes him to task for contending, in the face of polling data showing just the opposite, that Palin is just the sort of American sweetheart people will happily vote for. But Greenwald's criticism is downright kind compared to this entertaining savage attack. It's an attack worthy of the bubble-brained woman who ultimately inspired it.

Mad Dog Palin

. . . is the title of a piece I just read by Matt Taibbi, whom I try never to miss. He's got such a crackling writing style, and he's funny, and he's correct almost all the time, too.

Best line, in talking about the Palin address to the Republican convention: "It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag."

Unfortunately . . .

. . . it's really difficult to tell the difference between this hilarious spoof on the Alaskan Bimbo who in your nightmares could become president and the real Alaskan bimbo. Do we need any further evidence that this country is in serious trouble?

One for You, Nineteen for Me

Above is a graphic of the McCain tax plan, red, and the Obama tax plan, blue. You can call up a readable rendition of the chart here. Suffice it to say, this proves that McCain is once again lying. He claims that Obama's plan will "raise your taxes." Well, actually that's true--but only if you're in the top 1 percent of the population. If you're anywhere else, you're going to have your taxes cut.

Lying is about the only thing that McCain has done during this campaign. Exactly 55 lies to this point in the campaign and counting. Oh, and besides lying, he's also been whoring himself out to the most extreme wing of the Republican party. He's been doing that for months, even before he got the nomination. The lying has gotten so blatant that no less than Karl Rove, the prince of darkness himself, has declared that the McCain ads have gone too far. This is the equivalent of Attila the Hun complaining about barbarity.

The Alaskan Barbie

Look, I know Sarah Palin is the story of the hour, but I'm going talk about her in this post and then be done with it. This little Barbie doll with all the kids, the NRA seal of approval, the much-coveted ability to field-dress a moose, and the blessing of the nut-case religious right--this from-the-sticks chick who's now touted by the Republicans as perfectly capable of being president of the United States (give me a frigging break!)--simply is not worth my time. She's just a penny-ante, small-minded Rovian ploy to stir up the so-called base of the Republican party. But you better believe that underneath that cuteness is a dangerous moralist.

You may or may not have heard, and I doubt you'll be surprised, that she's all for book censorship. [There are links to several other revealing articles about Palin in the same place. She's a hypocrite and a liar, and she's not a reformer.] When she was amassing all that valuable executive experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, she inquired of the town librarian how she would feel about removing books from the shelves. The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons--bless her!--was "shocked" at the question and said she would most certainly resist such a move. A few months later, Ms Moose-Gutter tried to fire her because "she didn't fully support" the mayor. The librarian successfully resisted this attempt and later resigned.

So this book-banner (which is the same as a book-burner), this stalwart guardian of public morals, is the kind of person that the Republican party celebrates as fit to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. You couldn't make this stuff up, folks.

Time to Kick Butt

The numbers are in on what the public thought of Ms. Alaska Moose-Gutting, Gun-Totin', War-Mongering, Creationism-Preaching Sarah Palin's speech night before last. They have given the Republican party--a party bankrupt of ideas, up to its eyeballs in cronyism and corruption, and guilty of running the country into a ditch it will take maybe a couple of generations to get out of, if we're extremely fortunate--a huge rush. Glenn Greenwald reports that 60 percent of the people that heard the speech gave her an A, and 58 percent of the American people give her a favorable rating. Two weeks ago nobody knew who she was. (My fellow observer of the human condition over at Trench Warfare has some incisive observations about Ms Moose-Gutter. See her September 2 entry.)

Greenwald reports these numbers in the context of a piece that argues once again (he wrote at more length on the subject yesterday) that since the Republicans cannot possibly run on the issues, their campaign rests and will rest on relentless vicious personal attacks on Obama and his character. And the Democrats will just roll over and take it. The idea that Americans recoil from negativity in political campaigns is nonsense. These attacks work, especially on a people as uninformed and unsophisticated as Americans. They've worked since Reagan. Here's Greenwald:

The idea that Americans instinctively recoil from negativity or that there will be some sort of backlash against Republicans generally and Palin specifically because of how "negative" their convention speeches were is pure fantasy. Cultural tribalism and personality attacks of those sort work, especially when they're not aggressively engaged.counter-productive. And every four years, that belief is disproven.

Every four years, the GOP unleashes unrestrained personality attacks on Democrats and exploits cultural resentments. Every four years, Democrats tell themselves that such attacks don't work and are counter-productive. And every four years, that belief is disproven.

Look what these guys did to John Kerry, no less a war hero than McCain, and running against Bush-Cheney, a couple of war slackers! It is going to be far, far worse with Obama. It's high time that the Democrats "aggressively engage" the slanders and lies that will continue to gush from GOP campaign machinery. They will increase in frequency and intensity now that the campaign has officially launched. The Democrats not going to win this election playing patty-cake with a bunch of slanderous sharks. They need to take off the gloves, stop bowing to McCain's POW experience and kissing his ass, and start taking him to task for the low road he's taking. I really cannot believe the American people are going to choke in this smokescreen again!

My Man!

Thanks to my wife, who is somehow captivated by the Democratic political convention, I've seen more of it on TV than I otherwise would have. (I could say exactly the same thing about the Olympics.) So I've heard Hillary and Bill and Joe Biden and several others, but the best of all was Dennis Kucinich. I cannot say that I've found a single issue where I don't agree with him, or vice versa. He was my guy for the Democratic nomination, but as we all know somebody so progressive as to propose establishing a Department of Peace could not possibly stand a chance of winning the nomination. But, man, he sure raised hell on the podium at the convention. He blasted the Republicans and their fat cat friends the way they deserved to be blasted. In case you missed him, you can check him out right here.