Attitude Adjustment

Today's column for the Daily Banter, not surprisingly, has to do with last night's presidential debate and what it means for Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and all of us.

Despite lying his ass off, Romney scored big in Denver. The question now: What effect will it have on the campaign?

Here's an excerpt:

"I’ve been saying for a while now that premature gloating on the part of Democrats probably isn’t wise since, despite the growing lead Obama’s opened up recently and the momentum his campaign has enjoyed, there’s still enough time before election day for everything to change. Yes, it’s unlikely, as we’re constantly reminded by those who study the polls carefully, understand conventional wisdom inherently and know election year history like some people know NFL stats. But here’s the thing: This race isn’t like any we’ve seen before. Why? Because our national political climate isn’t like any that’s come before."

Read the Rest Here

Mission: Inscrutable

Proving that anti-Obama conspiracist nonsense knows no racial bounds, here's the balls-out craziest thing you'll hear all day.

Oliver Willis: Nutjob Video: Obama Was a Secret CIA Agent in Pakistan in 1981/2.23.10

Seriously, this guy makes Orly Taitz look like she's on Haloperidol.

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA

Karl Marks

From Karl Rove's website:

The final Rove & Co. electoral map of the 2008 election cycle points to a 338-200 Barack Obama electoral vote victory over John McCain tomorrow, the largest electoral margin since 1996.

Curious to see how Fox will spin that.

The Woman Behind the Man

Sad news, via CNN.com:

"Sen. Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died following a bout with cancer, Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, said Monday.

This photo provided by the Obama campaign shows Obama in 1979 with his grandmother Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham

"She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility," their statement said.

"She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure."

Obama and Soetoro-Ng asked that donations be made for the search for a cure for cancer in lieu of flowers. A small private ceremony will be held "at a later date."

Obama left the campaign trail for two days in late October to visit Dunham in Hawaii.

Obama spoke about his grandmother often on the stump, describing her as an integral figure in his youth who struggled against the glass ceiling in to make a better life for him.

"She's the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life," he said in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August.

"She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she's watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well."

As will tomorrow night be.

The Worship of Jackals by Jackasses

This was never intended to be a political blog.

For almost two-and-a-half years, I took a great deal of pride in the misanthropic tone of the stuff I cranked out here, which, as far as politics was concerned, meant that I never really got behind much of anyone but instead assumed that one opportunistic crook was as good as another. This, despite the fact that I'd come to loathe the special brand of Bush-era evil and stupidity that had been allowed to bring not simply the country but the world to the brink of catastrophe.

But then along came Barack Obama: an inspirational leader in whom I truly had faith and who reminded me that some things are important enough to rise above trite ridicule for the sake of a cheap laugh or two. Some things matter.

And then came Sarah Palin: the most inexperienced and intellectually incurious candidate for a major office that I've seen in my lifetime -- an election year parlor trick who would reveal herself to be more of a punchline than a serious contender for the second highest position in the free world. She was an insult to America's intelligence and someone who stood for everything that I was against. Worst of all, she proved that John McCain, the oft-lauded war hero who claimed to put "country first," was willing to, instead, put the country in danger if it meant he could win the White House.

And so I got pissed, and I broke my rule about not sticking to one subject consistently -- to say nothing of my rule about not backing anyone in particular and treating just about everyone with the same level of snotty disdain.

I did it because believe in Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

And I'm terrified of -- and furious at -- John McCain and Sarah Palin.

So, on the day before Election Day, let me once again lay out the arguments that I and a lot of the readers here have made for why Obama should be our next president and McCain and Palin should be sent home.

It's a sort of "Best Of" from the past three months of whirlwind politics.

DXM: The Speed of Lies/8.28.08

DXM: Choose Wisely/9.4.08

DXM: Both Ends Against the Middle/9.11.08

DXM: Stupid Does as Stupid Is/9.12.08

DXM: It's the Thought that Counts/9.28.08

DXM: Six of Dumb, Half Dozen of Dumber/10.2.08

DXM: Vice Work If You Can Get It/10.3.08

DXM: His Own Worst Enemy/10.16.08

DXM: The Meta-Metamorphosis of Sarah Palin/10.24.08

Hanging in the Balance

Immediately after the attacks of 9/11, most U.S. journalists and the collective news organizations they worked for were more than happy to jump on the patriotic bandwagon -- their supposedly hallowed sense of objectivity suspended (for what should have been, at best, a very short amount of time) as they closely followed the most devastating series of events in American history. At the time there were very few in this country willing to complain that the mass media were shirking their responsibility to provide the news from an unbiased point of view, simply because it seemed impossible to imagine anyone -- even journalists -- not being personally affected by the stories they were covering.

They were only human after all.

Not simply that -- they were American.

They lived here, and therefore understood that they themselves -- their home -- had come under attack on 9/11. They had a personal stake in what was happening -- one that was impossible to ignore or set aside.

Put simply: There are times when you just can't be completely unbiased.

I bring this up because according to a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, Barack Obama has received a certain amount of preferential treatment from the television media over the past several weeks. The survey logged the number of favorable comments and stories about each candidate as opposed to the number of unfavorable. It found that Obama has generally been portrayed in a more positive light than John McCain.

Supporters of Barack Obama -- myself included -- would argue that the reason for the discrepancy is simple: The press has had a hell of a lot more negative material to mine from John McCain's campaign than it has from Obama's. While objectivity is ostensibly crucial, it's irresponsible and just flat out unscrupulous to seek "balance" where there is none -- to, when covering the misdeeds of one candidate, force yourself to say something equally unfavorable about his or her opponent simply to maintain the illusion of objectivity. Over the last two months, McCain has made one bizarre decision after another; has staged several confusing and potentially dangerous political gambles; has behaved erratically, sometimes even petulantly as his political fortunes began to dwindle; and in a move that's inarguably reprehensible, has allowed the pot to be stirred among the most rabid and vitriolic of his supporters to the point where violence was threatened against his opponent. While the McCain campaign has been, by almost any standard, an absolute mess -- flush with one daily drama after another -- Barack Obama's run remains surprisingly, ironically, uneventful. Obama's been calm, cool and focused over the past several weeks, which -- to be honest -- doesn't give the press much to work with when it comes to its tendency toward contrived controversy.

Bottom line: Most journalists are just calling it like they see it.

But I have no doubt that there's another reason that the media -- and for that matter most anyone with a forum and an ability to influence the public who doesn't also count him or herself as a right wing mouthpiece -- has made sure to shine a bright light on the faults and foibles of John McCain and, in particular, Sarah Palin recently. It goes back to what I said earlier:

They live here.

They're American and therefore have a vested interest in this election: Like the rest of us, they have to live with the outcome. They have brains and understand what John McCain and Sarah Palin would mean for our country.

Many in the media just can't force some misguided brand of phony objectivity this time around -- not with so much at stake.

And as with 9/11, I'm not sure I can find a reason to blame them.

All Over but the Voting

"I cannot foresee a scenario that John McCain is elected president of the United States."

-- Pollster and Political Consultant Frank Luntz

The Washington Post: Obama, Democrats Hold Commanding Lead/11.2.08

Fear of a Black Aura

In the immortal words of Dave Barry: I swear I'm not making this up. The following is an e-mail chain sent to me by an alert reader (thanks Jon Rey) after it was sent to him by someone he knows, and so on and so on. Normally I'd say that it's shocking in its hilariously jaw-dropping stupidity, except for two things: 1) we've seen this kind of thing over and over during this presidential campaign, and 2) not only are there people out there who believe horseshit like this, but unfortunately their votes don't count less than yours or mine. So without further ado -- behold what you should apparently really be terrified of this Halloween: BARACK OBAMA'S DARK, SATANIC AURA!

Dear Friends,

I also know this friend, and I feel like what she is telling is the truth. She has a remarkable gift, and I appreciate the fact that she has been willing to share this because it is a lot of the same feelings I have had about him although I can see no auras.

I love you all and pray that each of us will be making the right decisions in the voting that we do. Please get help from the spirit and vote as your heart dictates. So much depends on the outcome, but I guess in reality if we as a nation could return to righteousness that would be the best outcome of all.

---------------------

I know this person very well. She is a good friend of mine. She is very honorable. I have never known her to lie. She has indeed been blessed with a special gift.

---------------------

Dear Friends and Family,

The Lord finally gave me permission to share this. I hope it’s not too late.

As you know, I have the spiritual gift of seeing auras. When I look at people, my spiritual eyes see shades of gray, from white to black. Over the past two months, I have seen pictures of Barack Obama, from childhood to now, bleeped on various news channels. It has been interesting to watch his aura get darker and darker the older he got. I was definitely not prepared for what I saw during the last presidential debate. Senator Obama turned and looked directly at the camera while answering a question. I saw that his aura was black, not just the dark gray I have been seeing, but black. Superimposed on the black was a hideously evil face, like a gargoyle’s face, or the scariest evil monster you can imagine. Then the words “Pure Evil” came to my mind. This disturbed me so much that I began to cry. I didn’t cry out of fear of Obama, but out of concern for our country. Imagine having the devil himself run this great country. If Obama wins, Satan will be running the country.

Until that night, I was going to write someone in on the ballot. That night I realized that if I wrote someone in, I would be handing the election to Obama. I realized the only chance we have is to vote for McCain. He is the only candidate close enough in numbers to possibly win. If we don’t vote for McCain, we would essentially be throwing our vote at Obama. I would never tell people how to vote. We need to think about the repercussions of our vote. Pray to know who to vote for. One vote could make the difference, and with so much hanging in the balance, it could REALLY make a difference.

Take this message and do with it as you will. I hope you pray to know what I am saying is true, get your own confirmation. If you find out what I am saying is true, and I am sure you will, pass this message on. We only have a week to get this message out, a week to help people know what they are really up against.

Yup, she's absolutely right. This message needs to get out so that people understand what they're up against. Now if anyone needs me, I'll be sitting in the corner hitting myself in the head repeatedly with a phone book.

Joe the Punter

At the beginning of the third season of Battlestar Galactica, most of what remains of the human population has been forced into an uneasy communal relationship with the Cylons after their surprise invasion of New Caprica. "Communal relationship," however, is a gross euphemism, as the reality is that the humans are little more than slaves to their Cylon overlords: they're under vigilant watch and forced to live in constant fear; they're subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly threatened with overwhelming force should they conspire against the military state; they're tortured in prison camps if they get out of line.

During this period of subjugation, a few humans -- either through rank opportunism or simply a resignation to the inevitability of the situation -- choose to cooperate with the Cylons and the puppet government they've created. They serve in office, join the secret police which is tasked with hunting down and "dealing with" insurgents among the population, and work in administrative positions.*

After the humans are freed in a daring rescue and are finally back with the fleet, those who collaborated with the Cylons on New Caprica are systematically hunted down by a secret tribunal, "tried" and, if convicted, executed. This sentence is carried out by putting them into a launch tube and firing them out of the air lock into space.**

Why do I bring this up?

Because Joe Lieberman is now talking to anyone who will listen about how much "respect" he's always had for Barack Obama.

No doubt sensing which way the political winds are blowing and hoping not to be rendered utterly irrelevant by them, the one-time Democratic vice presidential candidate turned full-time GOP attack dog seems to be trying to hedge his bet in the final days before America goes to the polls. For months Lieberman has played John McCain's sycophantic Renfield and led the charge against Barack Obama, accusing the Democrat of not putting "country first" and insinuating that he may be a Marxist. But now that the McCain campaign looks to be headed for an embarrassing defeat, Lieberman -- feckless little weasel that he is -- may be looking for a way back into the fold that he so categorically turned away from. It's one thing to think independently and put conscience above party; not only is this generally the correct way to behave -- it's the only way for anyone who considers him or herself to be intellectually honest. Lieberman didn't do that though -- not by a long shot. He used his position as someone who was nominally an insider within one political party to work toward the goals of another, basically taking on the role of double-agent. And what's worse, despite his claim of "respect" for Barack Obama, he helped mastermind a series of vicious attacks on the man he now fears may wind up being president and worked as hard as just about anyone to ensure his defeat.

So, what should become of Lieberman on November 5th if Obama wins the presidency?

Three words: Suck space, Joe.***

*I realize that the profiteering confederate is pretty much an archetype by this point and that a stronger analogy would've been, say, those very real people who cooperated with despotic regimes during wartime, but I'm all about pop culture and happen to like Battlestar Galactica, so deal with it.

**I'll overlook the fact that, in the context of the show, the secret tribunal is supposed to be a nefarious entity -- a vigilante group which does more harm than good -- and that Gaius Baltar is eventually acquitted of collaborating with the Cylons. I can do this because it's my blog -- so once again, deal with it.

***No, of course I'm not suggesting that Joe Lieberman be shot into space. It's a metaphor. For sending him somewhere he'll never be heard from again. Like space.

Red Yawn

From aforementioned indie filmmaker Lee Stranahan.

The Speed of Lies

Once again, it's rare that I repost something originally published within the past couple of months, but I feel the unfortunate need to resurrect this piece simply because the story it concerns has once again reared its ugly head. Over the last couple of days, professional buffoons Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Jerome Corsi have all alleged that Barack Obama's trip to Hawaii wasn't actually about visiting his ailing grandmother but was instead a stealth mission aimed at quietly dealing with the "ongoing rumors" that his Hawaiian birth certificate is phony and that he's not, in fact, a U.S. citizen. Here now, my column from August 28th of this year.

If you believe Philip Berg, Barack Obama is unfit to be President of the United States; his candidacy is nothing more than a dangerously specious house of cards that will almost surely collapse if allowed to continue.

According to Berg, Barack Obama harbors a secret which disqualifies him outright from running for the office of president -- and it's only a matter of time before the truth comes to light and the resulting embarrassing debacle leaves the entire Democratic Party in chaos.

See, If you believe Philip Berg, Barack Obama isn't a U.S. citizen.

Last Thursday, Berg -- a Philadelphia attorney who's something of a notorious presence within that city's legal community -- filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Pennsylvania demanding that an injunction be issued against the official nomination of Obama. The suit charges that the Illinois senator is constitutionally ineligible to become president on the grounds that he has yet to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate -- Berg claiming that the current one on file from Hawaii is a forgery, proven so by "three forensic experts" -- and that he maintains an unresolved dual-citizenship and owes allegiances to both Kenya and Indonesia, where his father was born and where he lived as a child, respectively. Berg says that he has access to copies of Obama's Jakartan school records which show the candidate registered under the surname of his mother's 2nd husband, Lolo Soetoro, and listed as an Indonesian citizen; as if to hedge his bet, he insists that even if Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate is indeed shown to be authentic, the school registry should be enough to keep the candidate out of the White House.

If these allegations sound familiar, they should; in one form or another, each of them has been bandied about the internet or bullhorned across conservative radio for months now in an ongoing effort to paint Barack Obama as "different."

Oh yeah, and they're all basically bullshit.

A couple of weeks back, the Annenberg Political Fact Check -- an organization whose credentials are pretty much bulletproof -- set out to settle once and for all the debate over Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate. The word "debate" deserves no small amount of qualification because, in reality, there never was a legitimate claim to be made that the document was phony -- simply a lot of fantastical conspiracy theorist innuendo, perpetuated and amplified at lightning speed by a million far-right dolts with computers and delusions of Sherlock Holmesian cleverness. Annenberg dispatched staffers to examine the birth certificate and ruled, to the surprise of no one with a modicum of common sense and two brain cells to rub together, that it's 100% legit; Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. As for the claim that Obama holds a dual citizenship or is in any other way beholden to a foreign country -- that was exposed as nonsense months ago.

And yet Philip Berg filed his lawsuit anyway. He filed it knowing full-well, one would have to imagine, that most of its claims are bogus -- that they already had been or easily could be debunked.

So why? What the hell would possess someone to willfully propagate claims that are tenuous at best and outright false at worst -- even going so far as to do it in court?

Because these days, when it comes to politics particularly, the truth is negotiable -- and there's value in the lie.

Whereas once there were a select few sources of information, and those sources were generally deemed credible by all but those on the furthest fringes of the public, now anyone can be his or her own news source. And while -- as this site, ironically, has advanced -- the rise of citizen journalism and hyper-connectivity has been good for the ethics of media as a whole, it's also created a treacherous wasteland of journalistic mini-fiefdoms, each spouting its own version of reality and together making it impossible, at times, to tell honest, well-researched fact from made-up crap conjured out of thin air to further an agenda. Whether the message comes in the form of an e-mail forwarded to your inbox by that paranoid uncle with the survival bunker in his basement who you're always hoping skips Thanksgiving, or as a bitter flamewar on every news aggregation outlet across the blogosphere, the internet has replaced television as the most effective and least regulated tool for political propaganda in America.

Which is why, ironically, it's now become the partial responsibility of television to help keep the corruption in check. It's too bad the good folks in the TV news media are usually unwilling to do it.

Mainstream media managers, as a whole, subscribe fully to the notion that bloggers and their internet realm are of an inferior journalistic stock; they see them as pests constantly circling the carrion of stories already broken by TV, radio and print; they condescend to them, dismissively painting their ilk as pasty, overweight losers, futilely raging against the machine from the comfort of a Middle-American basement, hopped up on Red Bull and basking in the post-orgasmic bliss of an afternoon spent masturbating to Asian porn. Those who adhere to the Mega-Media ethos believe that when a blogger does break a story, the quality of that piece of information can be judged by whether or not it rises to the level of inclusion in a mainstream broadcast, newspaper or magazine. In other words, only those above the radar can make the decision as to what's worth pulling up from under the radar. The problem is, the good stuff -- the powerful investigation, the sometimes penetrating insight -- gets passed over by the larger media outlets because it's, well, boring. It doesn't make for good TV or a quick, sharp read. Meanwhile, unfortunately, the garbage -- the rumor, conjecture, and misdirection -- is often picked up and elevated to the level of "real news" simply because it's so damn juicy and such a sure-fire ratings or circulation enhancer. A crap story thrown out by a few official-sounding blogs -- like the story of Obama's "phony" birth certificate -- can suddenly be granted validation simply by virtue of the fact that the "controversy" surrounding it is being discussed on national television. The lie is amplified inside the 24/7 cable news echo-chamber and, presto, it's suddenly palatable and worthy of serious consideration by 90% of the population.

It would be one thing if mainstream media outlets faced this kind of bullshit head-on and said, "No, this story isn't true, and if you believe it you're a lunatic." But it's better for ratings and revenue to instead ask, "A lot of folks are saying (insert spurious assertion here), but is it true?" (For the record, nobody does this vaguely referenced end-run on responsibility better than Fox News; see "Terrorist Fist Jab.") It goes without saying that this is how political propaganda is perpetuated; by reporting the rumor as its own story -- without sharply and decisively denouncing it -- you're validating it, giving new life to it, and ensuring that enough people will believe it that the very future of the country could wind up eventually hinging on it.

Ask yourself this: How many people still believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim?

Or this: How many people still believe that Iraq was connected to 9/11?

Very few within the mainstream media came right out and unequivocally shot down these ludicrous rumors before they could take root within the consciousness of the masses -- or at the very least, the minds of those who wanted nothing more than to have their preconceived biases confirmed.

There are thousands of Americans who will still claim that they "don't trust" Obama -- and yet they'll base this lack of trust on their willingness to trust an e-mail that got forwarded to them by a friend of a friend of a friend of some guy somewhere.

It's the responsibility of respectable news media everywhere to bring truth to propaganda and refute the fiction proffered for the sole purpose of sowing discord and confusing the electorate. It's incumbent upon the mainstream media, particularly if they value their stature as strongly as they claim, to shine a bright light on the lies, rather than fueling the fire by debating the merits of a story that they know perfectly well has no merits.

Should you believe Philip Berg?

It's a question that doesn't need to be asked, because it's already been answered.

Happy Days are Here Again

Both Ends Against the Middle

I don't usually repost something so soon after it was originally published, but with Sarah Palin once again fanning the flames of discord in this country by pitting "Small Town America" against, well, everyone else, I thought I'd revisit this piece from September 11th, 2008.

“To read the papers and to listen to the news, one would think the country is in terrible trouble. You do not get that impression when you travel the back roads. The small towns do care about their country and wish it well.”

-- Charles Kuralt

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay. You know... morons."

-- Blazing Saddles

A few years ago, my wife and I, along with a close friend of ours, set out to do something we'd each dreamed about since we were in our late teens: We packed up a vehicle, grabbed a map, and hit the road with no clear plan in mind other than beginning at one ocean and ending at another. For almost a full month, we satisfied our Kerouacian wanderlust along the vast highways and off the beaten paths that run like veins and arteries through the heartland between Miami and Los Angeles. We spent obliterated nights crawling from one dive bar to another in New Orleans and Memphis; toured Graceland and marveled at every possible permutation of Elvis memorabilia available at every gas station a thousand miles in either direction; ate a steak the size of a regulation first base bag at the Big Texan Ranch in Amarillo; stood in awe at the edge of the Grand Canyon and stared silently across the seemingly endless void of White Sands; stumbled upon a group of Navajo children dancing at sunset just outside the Petrified Forest in Arizona; lost our asses in Vegas and partied like rock royalty at the Standard in L.A.; began the 4th of July at the annual UFO Festival in Roswell, New Mexico and ended it at something called the "Firecracker Fandango" in Odessa, Texas.

We bought a souvenir coconut head in Okahumpka, Florida.

To say that our little cross-country expedition changed me fundamentally would be the grossest of understatements; the fact is that the things we saw, the people we met, and the ground-level view of the country I'd lived in since birth but had never truly come to know opened my eyes and allowed me to better understand what it means to be an American -- the pride that should unequivocally go hand-in-hand with being able to call yourself one. To this day, I consider the entire adventure to be one of the most profound and cathartic experiences of my life.

I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And one of the main reasons why is that it allowed me -- a guy who'd been raised in Miami and had chosen to live in one big city after another as he grew into adulthood -- to fully appreciate the singular and simple beauty of the small town.

While the heavily populated areas along our route provided plenty of entertainment, it was the barely-there blips on the map that seemed to stay with me. The quiet pull of places like Erick, Oklahoma and Holbrook, Arizona was undeniable and somehow resonated inside my head long after we'd moved on; these little towns, most of them sleepy pockets of stunted civilization marked by not much more than a water tower, left me feeling as if I were missing out on something indescribable by living in a metropolis; something unspoiled; something that spoke directly to a secret desire of mine -- to exist in perpetual slow-motion -- in way that was, for lack of a better word, magical.


I ended our journey believing that there was wonder in small town life.

I realize that my romanticism of the rural milieu probably stems at least slightly from the grass always seeming greener on the other side of the cow pasture (or these days, the Wal Mart). Whether I could fully succumb to the charms of small town living and not feel stifled by the lack of unadulterated crazy in my day-to-day existence, who can tell. But I know better than to automatically assume that anyone who does choose to call the sprawling American outland home is an uneducated rube.

I'm not sure the same can be said for the people running the John McCain campaign right now.

On the contrary -- they must think that small town America is overflowing with idiots.

That's the only explanation I can come up with as to why they're lying to it, pretending to give a damn about it and, worst of all, exploiting it: its people; its preponderance of faith, not all of which demands to be brandished like a weapon; its sense of patriotism.

A long list of clever opportunists, both Republican and Democrat, seized on the idea of using the little guy as the main prop in a carefully stagecrafted piece of bullshit political theater long before McCain took up the mantle -- but I'm not sure anyone's narrowed the culture war down specifically to a battle between small town and big city with the kind of assurance that he and his people have this election. They've raised not simply pitting the classes against each other but actually undermining the infrastructure of this country to an art form.

And they've done it by trumpeting a single dubious claim over and over: "Our vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is from a small town and can therefore speak for every American in every rural area across the country; her God, guns, and guts belief system, along with her folksy "hockey mom" style, is not just what this nation needs, it is this nation -- far more than any of those overeducated elitists in the big coastal cities."

To say that this is presumptuous, if not flat-out ballsy-as-hell considering that it excludes and even demonizes a substantial portion of the country, would be like saying that John McCain isn't a kid anymore. What's worse, though, is just who the architects of this strategy are -- the campaign coordinators drawing up the battle plans centered around ingratiating their candidates to Little Town, USA.

They're basically K-Street lobbyists -- Washington neo-aristocracy.

They're Beltway-savvy future oligarchs using their Ivy League educations to cynically craft talking points written in faux-yokelese proclaiming the unassailable goodness of small town life.

They're the furthest fucking thing from the people they're pretending to give a crap about -- real elitists using the unwashed masses as pawns in a war against phantom elitists.


While no one would deny that the Democrats can be staggeringly adept at populist political manipulation, I've yet to see their own ability to divide and conquer through misdirection and outright bullshit come close to matching the GOP's. And this particular gambit -- claiming to hold the monopoly on "small town values" -- reaches new heights of lowness. It does it, first and foremost, by way of an underlying subtext with slyly racist implications. Even the densest of far-right acolytes understands that when he or she follows the talking points and parrots the virtues of rural tradition, there's another half of the equation that's left unsaid: that the opposite set of American values -- those of the country's "urban" areas, if you get my drift -- just don't measure up. Sure, when that white woman in the funny hat at the Republican National Convention last week spoke so highly of small town mores she meant "in comparison to those of the cosmopolitan 'elitists'"; but make no mistake, she was also subtly implying: "in comparison to those, you know, them -- Obama's people."

Back in 1992, the GOP attempted the same kind of crafty, nudge-nudge wink-wink sloganeering by appropriating the term "family values," blasting it as a suburban battle cry, and co-opting the meaning behind it as the exclusive property of the Republican party. George Bush and Dan Quayle couldn't make a public appearance without dropping the phrase at least three or four times, in tones ranging from scolding to triumphal. The problem, of course, is that even though the tactic worked as it was intended to -- as a means of energizing the conservative religious base -- it couldn't be recycled for the current Republican efforts; the unborn baby in Bristol Palin's belly pretty much shot that possibility all to hell. It's tough to claim that you're the party of old-fashioned family values when your vice presidential candidate's unmarried teenage daughter is pregnant by the local bad boy. That would require a level of hypocritical chutzpah even the Republicans don't possess.

So instead, they fashioned a similar call to arms around that vice presidential candidate's most notable characteristic (besides having a pregnant teen daughter): her small town background.

In the alternate universe that a phalanx of GOP operatives have conjured out of thin air in some Georgetown boardroom, Sarah Palin's small town charm and backwoods resourcefulness -- to say nothing of her "cute little filly" looks -- are all the qualifications she needs to succeed on the world stage and potentially take control of the most powerful nation to ever exist. She's been smartly packaged and sold to the common folk as one of their own -- a celebrity among those who claim to despise celebrities. What's more, it's not just Sarah Palin but what she supposedly represents that's cast as the cure for this country's ills. Like that laughably stupid grass roots push back in 1994 to "Elect Forrest Gump " -- only with a far more malevolent undertone -- voters are being asked to buy into the idea that provincial simpletonism, when thrust into the right situation by nothing more than circumstance, will not just prevail but will do so honorably. And the voters specifically being manipulated into swallowing this nonsense are those who supposedly share a special kinship with Palin that's based on nothing more than her having spent most of her life outside an urban center.

But as I've mentioned before, this election isn't about small town and big city; it never was -- regardless of what the GOP mouthpieces are encouraging you to believe. Not all who live in a small town are the same. They may have plenty of common social and cultural touchstones, just as those who call any particular place home do; however, to say that Sarah Palin and the Republican party is the one true voice of rural America is insulting -- especially when this claim is little more than a political parlor trick designed to get a guy elected. Besides, pitting one half of this country against the other based solely on where each happens to live isn't politics at all -- it's civil war. And it's wrong.

I live in the largest metropolis in America, and to assume that I know what every one of my eight-million neighbors is thinking would be ridiculous and presumptuous. I can't speak for them.

I've traveled to dozens of small towns across America, and I wouldn't dare try to speak for the residents of those places either.

And neither should John McCain.

His Own Worst Enemy

I'll make this quick since I'm trying to write while simultaneously fending off the hypnotic insanity of Lazy Town (which, although not as good as Jack's Big Music Show, is still infinitely less annoying than that bossy bitch, Pinky Dinky Doo).*

I think I've been pretty honest and even-handed when it comes to this election season's debates, presidential and vice presidential: I considered the first showdown between Obama and McCain a draw; thought Biden cleaned Palin's clock; and gave the second presidential face-off squarely to Obama, but didn't walk away from the thing thinking that anyone had hit hard or scored big.

Last night, however, was a blow-out -- a thorough decimation by any applicable standard.

Put simply: Obama destroyed McCain.

Or, more appropriately, McCain destroyed himself.

I've made mention of McCain's deficiencies several times in the past -- as have others -- so there's no sense repeating them verbatim once again, but last night every negative quality that's ever been ascribed to John McCain was on display from the first question to the closing seconds. He was angry, disdainful, condescending, erratic, surreally confusing (and confused), openly hostile and, a few times, just plain batshit crazy -- or at the very least inadequately medicated. By contrast Obama, who's naturally calm and gentlemanly anyway, looked like Jesus Christ. He respectfully knocked back McCain's carpet bombing run of horseshit with a kind of rarefied and, yes, presidential dignity that had to be seen to be truly appreciated. The difference between these two men and, by proxy, the futures they promise for this country couldn't have been clearer. McCain is full of bile, rage and ill-advised arrogance, and speaks with a smug certainty that betrays the kind of hallucinatory thinking that's nearly put this nation asunder during the past eight years; last night, more than at any point previously, he exuded a near-lethal combination of overly-entitled adolescent jock swagger and shameless crybaby petulance. His exaggerated smirk never looked like anything less than a mask, hiding his unfettered fury and overwhelming desire to just reach over and punch Obama in the mouth.

As of last night, it should be official.

McCain and Palin have shown their colors to this nation; America knows just what it's getting if it stoops to put them in office for the next four years.

We've seen the kind of pettiness and bluster they represent -- and likewise, the kind of august thoughtfulness exhibited by Obama and Biden.

The choice is -- well, there is no choice.

Not if you really give a damn about this country.

(*Only parents of small children will understand any of this.)

Send in the Clowns

I know it's last minute, but if anyone's interested I'll be pseudo-Twittering tonight's third and final presidential debate via my Facebook page's status bar.

If you're a "friend" of mine, feel free to join in the fun. There's no way in hell I'll be as entertaining as Patton Oswalt -- who's just a freakin' riot when he does this sort of thing -- but I'll do my best.

Chez Pazienza on Facebook

Grandma Got Run Over by a Redneck

See what happens when you don't put your senile grandparents someplace where they can be looked after?

The Huffington Post: Woman Who Called Obama "Arab" at GOP Rally Cites Library Books, Secret Information/10.10.08

Parental Advisory

Quote of the Week (And It's Only Monday)

"My friends, we've got them just where we want them."

-- John McCain at a rally in Virginia, referring to the Obama campaign, which has increased its lead over McCain to a full 10 points according to the Washington Post poll

Sound and Fury

This is nothing short of terrifying.

The Politico: Panic Attacks: Voters Unload at GOP Rallies/10.10.08