People Get Ready, There's a Train A-Comin'

It appears the President will be down in Florida tomorrow to announce a bunch of federal dollars coming our way for a high-speed rail connecting Orlando and Tampa.

That's cool. I've always wanted America to get a decent rail system. (An old post that continues to ring true for too many on this blog is "Amtrack Sucks.")

But I wish we lived in the 1930s, when if a President announced a monster huge job like this, it'd get done in a year. As it is, projects like these have gone the way of jobs in just about every other industry in this country, including advertising. Studies. Meetings. Holdups. Overruns. Redos. More meetings. Another meeting. Focus groups. Surveys. A poll. More studies. Put it on hold for a while. Reconvene. Look at it. Have more meetings. Talk in circles. Too many people trying to justify why they are involved in the project and fighting with one another over who has control.

I'll believe it when I see it.

The Obligatory Debate Analysis

(I know I'm not the only one who remembers how to spell "analysis" because of its first four letters.)

Forget the spinners. They had their stories written before the debate was over. David Brooks this morning leads with, "There she was, resplendent in black," thereby cementing which of his readers will continue and which readers will promptly take his column out to the yard to pick up dog shit.

Michelle Malkin, who is nothing less than a modern-day Goebbels, is ridiculous in her praise, including the title the fan girl gives her piece, "Sarah Rocks!" (Exclamation Michelle's, not mine.)

In the end, if you loved her before, you love her even more now. If you didn't like her before, you're only sorry she didn't freak out and run offstage. If you were neutral and "undecided," you likely still are.

After the liars are done lying, the sober will see this for what it was: a wind-up doll reading notes that had little to do with the questions being asked. I suppose after a month of intense cramming and debate-prep, any one of us could've pulled it off. But in today's politics, that's a "victory." We're living in a Reality TV show.

You can like her spunk and her "charm" and her plucky go-get-'em-ness, but if you can see this person sitting in the White House making decisions that will affect you and me, you live in a different world than I do.

Sarah Smells Blood

A large group of white people showed up in St. Paul, Minnesota last night to cheer on America’s Homecoming Queen and Junior Class President, and then dance awkwardly to some crazy song called “Raisin’ McCain” sung by some country music guy only country music fans are familiar with. I’m not sure if they understood the irony of the title of the song. While the happy family played Hot Potato with Snow White's Down syndrome baby, the cameras panned desperately for a face of color, occasionally finding one and then lingering on it for an awkwardly long moment. And poor Levi Johnston made his debut as the groom in America’s next reality TV show, Shotgun Wedding.

All Governor Palin had to do last night was not screw up, and she had plenty of time to practice her speech, sequestered in a hotel for five days lest she actually have to face questions about her questionable past from a curious press, now the enemy of the McCain camp for doing the job McCain failed to do.

The speech was textbook Sean Hannity (minus Sean's daily, coded allusions to the Antichrist), although delivered in the voice of the school secretary from Ferris Buehler’s Day Off. Ms. Palin proved herself worthy of a fight, and I hope Senators Biden and Obama come at her swinging wildly, caring not for her gender nor playing nice in deference to her neophyte status. She’s a pit bull in lipstick by her own account, and the only way I know to fight a rabid pit bull is to whack it in the head with a baseball bat.

Let the battle begin.

Obama Takes it to YouTube

Obama's campaign is off and running. His calculated decision to go tieless in this video and the fact that his people put it up on YouTube say we are in for perhaps a different sort of campaigning. Setting up a presidential exploratory committee is likely just a technicality and formality that basically means he'll officially announce next month.



I wouldn't mind being a consultant on this campaign. It will be fun to watch. It already runs the risk of being lampooned as too folksy. Sharpen your knives, Democratic co-contenders, this is the new front-runner.

Advice to John Edwards: You are not Bobby Kennedy. Please knock off the drippy poverty talk. You are a very wealthy former trial lawyer with nice hair and a smile. That may have worked on Carolina juries, but this is the Big Show. You can hang out with poor blacks all day long, but Obama is black. You're sounding and looking wimpy these days. We'll need to see some genuine wrath if you're to be believed.

Advice to Hillary Clinton: Sorry, there's nothing you can do. You wore out your welcome the first year of your husband's presidency. Your recent attempts to appear middle-of-the-road are horribly transparent and make you look as though you don't know where you stand. In desperation, you might start calling Obama by his full name of Barack Hussein Obama.

Advice to Chris Dodd: Never in a million years, Chris. Why are you even in this race? The Spanish fluency will serve you well, but you're still an unknown blue-blood.

Advice to Joe Biden: You're smart and knowledgeable, with some great ideas and a sharp wit, but this is a contest of telegenics. The new teeth are nice, but why did you stop at the forehead when you had hair replacement surgery?

Advice to Dennis Kucinich: You're joking, right, Denny? You've got more baggage than a contender has ever carried. You'd be way too easy to slam dunk. They'll start by mocking your veganism. Get out now before it gets ugly.

The author of this blog is a proud independent and favors no political party.