Your turn at the Soapbox

Katie Couric: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

Sarah Palin: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundry that we have with Canada. It's funny that a comment like that was kinda made to … I don't know, you know … reporters.

Couric: Mocked?

Palin: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

Couric: Well, explain to me why that enhances your foreign-policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. And there…

Couric: Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right next to, they are right next to our state.

It was bad enough when conservative pundits were pulling this baloney. To hear it from her mouth is more than awesome. I just don't have enough sarcasm to top that.

But I can try.

I had leftover sesame chicken for dinner. I am now an expert on Chinese foreign policy.

I don't want to say 'I told you so'... Aw, who am I kidding, yes I do!

Two weeks ago conservatives were all a twitter when polls showed that McCain had managed to pull a minor lead out of a hat. This blog was home to comments such as:

I have noticed, as have the polls, that McCain has all but wiped out any bounce that Obama woul've received. too bad he shot himself in the foot with that Biden guy...

The Dems are worried man. Joe Biden didn't affect the polls at all, which has them worried as well.

I don't care too much, but I can't resist getting a chuckle at Hollywood's expense. I think they might actually be hurting Obama's campaign.

I'm sure the Hollywood liberal conspiracy must be relieved. All thanks to political wizard Jason Bourne. I hear he hunted those polls down and choked them to death with his bare hands. With his eyes were closed.

As I said before:

You might be excited for now, but just wait. There's still plenty of time for McGrumpy to bore us all to tears before the election. And just wait until Minnie Mouse is asked actual questions instead of just repeating the tired, and patently false, "and I said thanks, but NO THANKS to your bridge to nowhere."

Give it a week, maybe two.

Then we'll talk.

Anyone want to talk about polls now? McCain is asleep at the wheel (dang ambien) and Palin can't answer four questions without that moose-in-the-headlights look on her face.

Let me be the first to admit: we're not there yet, but things are starting to get a little more comfortable. With any luck John McCain will have a few more Hail Mary's up his sleeve that will utterly decimate any hope he has of a meaningful political future. For his next trick we can expect him to suspend his campaign and threaten to skip any debates until Barack Obama joins him on a personal mission to find a cure for skin cancer.

Any legacy the man had of honesty and mavericky-ness have been erased by his stunning tailspin. It ain't over, but I feel better about it.

Que the Celine Dione music.

John McCain isn't content to flail hopelessly. He now has to make a complete embarrassment of himself by knighting himself Savior of the Economy. He has decided to suspend his already dead campaign so he can run to Washington and save everyone from evil capitalists. Populists rejoice.

Here are 9 good reasons John McCain should sulk back to his dark little corner and let people who know what they are doing fix things.

1. He isn't the Stephen Hawking of economics.
2. He isn't president.
3. Someday, he will have to debate issues with Barack Obama.
4. If he actually shows up in the Senate they'll have to scrape the dust off the seat he's left vacant since January. He already missed votes on the GI bill, energy policy, and basically everything that has gone through the Senate including, I'm sure, insignificant bills that would have saved your children from terrorists. But those weren't important.
5. He knows less about economics than Sarah Palin knows about foreign policy. The McCain campaign will soon announce that McCain's wife sometimes let him look at her credit cards and he is, therefore, an expert on the economy.
6. It's only been a month since the last time he promised to end his vacation from his elected duties and return, triumphantly, to DC to save the economy.
7. They don't want your 'help'.
8. The last time he was involved in 'fixing' banks the dang economy almost collapsed. I think it would be in our best interest if he started fretting about liberal media conspiracy again.
9. Having a press conference (first one in eons) to have your picture taken in Washington pretending you are actually doing something is not suspending your campaign. That's called a publicity stunt. He'd have more luck posing with Paris Hilton.
   

I would have done 10 but I have decided to suspend my blogging and return to Utah and save the beleaguered and collapsing education system. 'Cause, you know, I'm an expert on all things educatiomanal.

I wait, in rabid anticipation, for John McCain to sweep in and save us all from sure economic destruction. I'm so glad he's there for us. It's like he's superman for our wallets. And everybody loves superman.

Not slip-ups. Not half-truths. Not misunderstandings. Not quotes taken out of context. These are bold-faced, outright lies.

Iraq is like Arizona. Only without all the crazy old golfers:

"There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today."

A vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for Genocide!
Even Mittens called him a liar after he said:

"If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher."

Barack Obama wants to burn money to keep poor people warm
On nuclear power:

it's 'clean and it's safe and we can recycle -- excuse me -- reprocess and we can store. My opponent is against nuclear power...'

Uh, no. Maybe his campaign needs to visit Obama's website to see what their position really is instead of making up one for themselves.

Raise taxes
McCain has repeatedly claimed that Barack Terrorist Obama will bring about:

'the largest tax increase since the Second World War.'

Right. Liar. According to that liberal smear machine Factcheck.org McCain's tax plan would decrease taxes for zillionaires all over America. Both plans would decrease taxes for middle-class American's. Barack's would give my tax bracket almost $300 dollars more than McCain's.


Sarah Palin was the inspiration Democracy in the Soviet Union.
There isn't enough time to go into the lies they churned out for her. One of my favorites:

"You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay -- and made a profit!"

Nope. Someone else thought of putting it there. It didn't sell. So, they sold it privately. At a loss.

Another whopper: Sarah Palin is qualified to be president because she stopped needless projects that sucked up tax dollars. What a maverick.

Truth: She campaigned for the $300 million dollar bridge. Then cancelled it when the fed wouldn't allow it. But she still took the money.

I could go on about her all day. But I won't. Bill Clinton wouldn't like it.


John McCain is the new Aerosmith
McCain campaign claims the Secret Service counted 23,000 raging fans waving lighters and singing 'More than Words' at a Palin-Some Old Dude rally.

'We didn't provide any numbers to the campaign,' said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service.

Real crowd? ~8,000

Pigs ears will fuel future wars for generations to come.
Again from factcheck:

"McCain's talk about eliminating $100 billion a year in earmarks is largely fantasy. His advisers are now promoting a more realistic plan of eliminating $100 billion in overall spending. But it is difficult to take even that promise very seriously given the fact that the senator refuses to identify exactly which projects he will be cut. To use a phrase coined by George H.W. Bush, this is 'voodoo economics,' based more on wishful thinking than on hard data or carefully considered policy proposals."

Barack Obama wants to give pornography to your sweet, innocent, little children.

"Obama's one accomplishment? Legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family."

Liars everywhere will look to this ad for generations to come, it will be the standard by which all future lies are judged. McCain's pants are still burning from this one. Not only did they lie about a well-intention and meaningful bill (it's akin to like me claiming McCain wants to destroy freedom and kills babies in his spare time because he supports the war) but also Obama's role in it.

Carol Ronen, the now-retired state senator who sponsored the bill, said its main intent was to make sure that teenagers got information that was "medically accurate," a requirement that wasn't then part of the school code. A secondary effect was to expand age-appropriate sex education down to lower grades, to allow things like teaching school children to avoid sex predators, Ronen said.

"Barack never had anything to do with it," she said.

McCain is an honest, folksy, old-timey politician.
Uh, what happened to the Straight Talk Express?

There's no more need for honesty in his campaign. Just a concerted effort to keep up appearances. It doesn't matter what's true, it's just about what people think is true. Campaign manager Rick Davis:

"This election is not about issues, this election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

I'd keep going but I've run out of energy. And when you've told too many lies for me to whine about, you know you have gone too far. I'll close with the words of someone else on this here blog. A year or so ago James summed up what we are all thinking about McCain at this stage in the game: that he's lost it. He's crashing and burning. He's abandoned his good image and resorted to lies to get anyone to listen.

"...the more I listen to McCain and Rudy though, the more I'm convinced they can't beat Clinton or Obama"

Let's hope you were right, James. Let's restore some honor to the office. Don't elect McCain.

The McCain campaign is stooping to lows that the Obama campaign had the decency to rise above.



Instead of doing the right thing, McCain and Palin have trotted this private matter around the yard like their favorite show-dog. It's a simple attempt of faux-outrage. They have no answers to the legitimate questions that have been raised about Palin's lack of experience, her alliance to a party that is set on succession from the union, her abuse of power, her desire to ban library books, and MUCH MORE.

Instead, they make Palin's 17 year-old daughter a straw-man. They trot her boyfriend out on the tarmac where John McCain proceeds to give him a full-contact massage in front of the national media to make Evangelicals hearts go all a flutter. They concoct nonexistent liberal stories about DNA tests and media scrutiny in order to fool Americans into thinking the Obama campaign is unfairly targeting an innocent girl. It's the same as the person who runs into the street, dives in front of an oncoming car, and calls it attempted homicide.

Make no mistake. The Obama campaign has too much class to descend to this level of political desperation. It is, however, telling that the McCain campaign has no problem taking a private matter and using a 17 year-old as a human Pinata. It's no surprise. Before this came out their only approach to legitimate questions was, "You can't ask that. She's a woman. You're sexist."



Not even Tucker Bounds has answers. He's only the head of the McCain campaign. He loved it when voters new little about Obama. Now, he can't even defend their own VP candidate. The irony is so rich I can almost taste it.

What on earth were they thinking? How can they sleep when they think that spending 15 minutes on a plane in Ireland or "Alaska borders Russia" is a legitimate answer to people questioning her foreign policy experience.

Alaska borders Russia? Are they claiming that Sarah Palin is the reason we haven't been living a real-life version Red Dawn is because Sarah Palin protected us from the communists?

I would laugh but it can't bring myself to do it. You just can't laugh at a car wreck, when innocent people are going to get hurt. So I weep for you, Republicans. It's no longer a nomination. It's a travesty.

Completely plausible conspiracy #1.

There is a masochistic dental conspiracy.

It's true! Dentists are indoctrinated from their earliest days of dental school on the proper mauling and torturing of poor folks who just want to get their cavities filled. How do I know this? Well, duh, all dentists hurt people, like, every day! That means there is a grand conspiracy created by these genuinely evil executioners parading around in smocks and goofy face masks. They want hurt you and then overcharge you by thousands of dollars. First they drill holes in your face and fill your teeth with toxic cement and then they send you an overinflated bill. Physical and emotional pain! They want you to scream out in pain until that funny little vein on your head is doing an awkward tango like Marie Osmand on Dancin' with the Washed-up, Has-Been, Daytime-TV Stars.

I can't remember exactly where I saw it but there was this poll where dentists were asked things like: Do you enjoy punching innocent children in the face?; and, Have you ever tossed bags of cute little kittens off of the Golden Gate Bridge? Not surprisingly, 92% of all so-called "dental professionals" were self admitted kitty-killers and child-face-punchers. That's what the poll said, and polls are always right.

You might not believe me, but that doesn't make it not true. I know it's true.



Completely plausible conspiracy #2.

Nursing homes are just a front for meanies to kill nice old folks.

It's true! I saw this Gallup poll that showed that 137% of people who live in a nursing home will die within 5 years. OHMYGOSH! Nursing homes must be just like Buchenwald but all over the whole stinking country! The picture above shows a sweet elderly woman at what she thinks is just a friendly Tuesday Night Ice Cream Social, but really they are feeding her frozen arsenic. Nursing home administrators are even worse than dentists. At least dentists pretend to give you laughing gas. Nursing home administrators just poison your prune juice. While dentists are deviant and cruel, nursing home administrators are really a modern-day embodiment of the demon Charon but they go the extra mile and kick you in the kneecap before ferrying you to Hades. Never go to a nursing home. You'll die!

Now excuse me, I have an election to rig. We can't let J. Sidney McCain deny the Benevolent Socialist Revolution from what is rightly ours to steal, now can we?

Sorry I haven't been responding. I've been too busy attending the latest round of seminars at work about 'How To Overthrow America And Get A Socialist-Liberal-Muslim-Child-Eater Elected Using Hypnotism And Magic'. It just part of working at a newspaper, you have to keep current or the liberal conspiracy will just keep moving without you; leaving you behind in the dust.

Did you know that America didn't really land on the moon? It's true! That was just Hollywood. Also, aliens are recording you right now and killing hapless cows every night. LBJ ordered JFK's assassination, Bush planned 9/11, Masons run the world, Paul McCartney is dead, Elvis is alive, the Holocaust never happened and I, of course, am a just a figment of your imagination.

There's a reason they're called conspiracies. It's because they are stupid ideas that defy reason and appeal to people who are too convoluted to accept reality or too stubborn to admit that they are wrong.

I'm going to post two videos and I want you to ask yourself: If I were a news organization, what would I want to show my viewers? First McCain:



He's meeting with 5 people in a grocery store and it only gets interesting when someone spills the applesauce. As Jon Stewart said, "Campaign clean-up in aisle 5!"

Here's what Barack Obama was doing (I know you won't watch the whole video but give it a few seconds to get what's going on):



No applesauce. Only 200,000 Germans waving, get this, AMERICAN FLAGS! When is the last time anyone in Germany waved an American flag? Dang, he even gets the Europeans to be patriotic!

So what would you choose? Spilled applesauce or 200,000 Europeans who are starting to remember how dang great this country is. It's a simple question of what people in this country are wanting to see on television. Obama is interesting; McCain is moldy cheese.

Two people are standing on the street waiting for a bus during a drenching storm. One person looks up and knows that the whole universe is conspiring against him: God, nature and all of humanity are out to him utterly and completely miserable.

The other guy looks up and sees a rainstorm and kicks himself for not bringing an umbrella.

So, it's raining on you. Who do you blame?

Here's what I propose: both candidates, one ring and a preference for sleeper holds. First one to say 'uncle' loses.

It would be less painful than having to watch John McCain and Barack Obama bash each other's heads across the airwaves for the next few months. I loathe political TV ads. McCain's newest batch make me want to wretch.

November can't come soon enough.

I've also got a long post of a similar vein at my other blog if you are so inclined.