The Spin!

Volume something, number something, I'm too lazy to look it up right now. (Click for big.)

Crossposted to Radio Free Babylon

A Discussion Over a Disc

Whether you watch it Fair and Balanced or prefer The Place for Politics, there's no getting away from The Spin. And it drifts into your own conversations, as these two dear friends discover. (Click for the large)

Stephen Douglas Down in Polls - Goes Negative

Like many of us, Bill Green at Make the Logo Bigger has lost his mind this election season. So in a fit of dementia (and after a bottle of absinthe that conjured hallucinations of past American presidential elections) Bill wrote and produced this spot for Stephen Douglas' struggling campaign of 1860. I then voiced it with a head cold for the modest sum of $500 Confederate Dollars.



Nice working with you, Bill.

This is post #1,111 at Where's My Jetpack?

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.

Push Poll Paul

I've modified "Cold Call Carl" as we come into the final stretch of this marathon of an election season. The din of the spin is deafening and dumbing.

If I were a teacher and America sat in my classroom, I would mark on her paper, "F. See me."

click for bigness

Crossposted to Radio Free Babylon.

Campaign Posters from the Other Side

The political short-order cooks are working double shifts of late, sweating in the kitchen as they turn this election season into a vomitorium of bad taste, unseemly innuendo and blatant lies. Throw in a little Sean Hannity, a dash of "Take America Back for God," and a pinch of leftover 60s radicalism and you've got the makings for a really foul smelling melting pot. What we've been served is a big steaming platter of political junk food, free of nutrients and loaded with crap. "Eat up, kids! Clean your plates! You know, there are people in Africa starving for democracy."

So why fight it anymore? I'm going to join the fray.

Imagine if we let Karl Rove create posters for Obama. Or what if we let David Axelrod create posters for McCain? They'd probably look something like these. (Click for larger versions.)

Must I Do Your Work For You, Karl Rove?

Come on, dudes - this one was so easy. You can't let images of Obama looking young and fit, athletic and cool crisscross the globe without some quick counter-strikes. This one's on me, since I like Churchills and Obama apparently didn't use any.

Click for Big Surf

Picnic At Karl Rove's Place

The McCain Campaign is reinventing the term “Kool-Aid Drinkers,” and my own family has been victimized.

A well-respected and formerly level-headed close relative of mine told me last night by phone, “You know that thing in Berlin for Obama? They were just there to see a rock concert! Did you see how bored they were? They didn’t know they had to sit through a speech before they could see their concert! I don’t know what he’s for except ‘Change.’ He can’t even talk without a teleprompter. It's all uhs and duhs.”

I said, “Mom! You need to balance your Limbaugh diet with some other news sources.”

Mom replied, “What? Those liberals at 6:30 who are all in love with Obama?”

“Try CSPAN,” I suggested. (Where full-length, actual sit-down interviews with Obama can be seen where he, surprisingly, is very articulate, bright and clean.)

The attack dogs are ahead of McCain, creating his talking points for him, setting his agenda and crafting his policy. My own dear mother has been duped by Limbaugh, Hannity and Rove.

Now the Republicans are attempting a very cheesy brand of humor. It’s not working.

This Should Be Fun

As Obama accuses McCain of running for Bush's 3rd term and McCain accuses Obama of running for Carter's 2nd term, the Republicans are getting all User Generated Content on us and sponsoring a contest where you can create a video of someone in your neighborhood who serves "a cause greater" than themselves. Hopefully, your video will be of a registered Republican.

And if you win...you're going to St. Paul, Minnesota for the Republican National Convention! This will be a pretend celebration, a funeral disguised as a wedding, where everyone ignores the giant elephant (OH!) in the room known as the King of Anti-Charisma, John McCain. They will also request that the networks avoid the guy in the VIP box known as the current President of the United States.

Not that charisma wins elections (it does) or that Bush will be a drag on McCain (he will) but it surely won't be fun to see the entries to this contest.

As I predicted and is already occurring, McCain's only hope is Smear in the First Degree. McCain will continue to pretend to distance himself from this tactic while allowing the damage to be inflicted by others. But what can you do? Politics is War. War is Hell. And sometimes people get shot down. Then when they return home they dump their wives who got in car wrecks and start courting rich heiresses who look like Cruella DeVille.

This Man Obviously Hates America

This is House Minority Leader John Boehner, (whose family is really tired of telling everyone, "It's pronounced BAY-ner!") and this is his official photograph.

I saw Representative Boehner on some Sunday news talk show this morning and I sensed something disingenuous, maybe even evil in the man. Then I realized what it was. He was not wearing an American Flag Lapel Pin. If you do a Google image search for Boehner, you'll have a hard time finding this Ohio Catholic Republican wearing an American Flag Lapel Pin. I think someone has some explaining to do.

Surely Representative Boehner understands that one's patriotism is measured by the symbolic act of wearing a cheap, Chinese-made trinket on the lapel.

Good people of the 8th congressional district of Ohio, I hope you do not re-elect this man, whose allegiances are suspect, whose loyalties lie perhaps with dangerous groups that hate America and whose own refusal to prove his love for his country make him ill-fit for public service.

Because I'm Looking Out For You

Click for some super-sized 1024 x 768 gorgeousness
Just in case you, like me, can't get enough of Hillary Clinton, I made you this lovely desktop background. I'm not even going to charge you for it. You're welcome. If you gaze long enough at the picture, you'll come under her spell. Surrender, Dorothy.

It's not enough that I see her angelic face every time I go to Google News, or see her tireless, warrior visage in my reader, or find her likeness on every web site in the form of banner ads posing the question "Should Hillary Quit?" Heavens no, she shouldn't quit. She's a fighter. She's been fighting for people like you and me for over 35 years and so I was compelled to create this collage. I love turning on the TV at any time of the day or night, assured that I will certainly be treated to her soothing voice and reassuring words. I will see her pointing and nodding with confidence, a confidence that is instantly imparted to me, with which I can face whatever the day may hold. It is a confidence that allows me to slumber like a child at night, carefree in a peaceful and undivided nation governed by the Former First Lady and current Junior Senator from New York.

All this talk of "Clinton fatigue" is coming from a bunch of misogynist men who are afraid of powerful women. They don't recognize how perfect she is for our country because they are blinded by their ignorance and arrogance. I am going to have her face tattooed on my chest. I'm going to buy a 70s van with a waterbed in the back and have her awesomeness airbrushed onto the side (maybe reclining in a bikini with a giant rounded afro, a white tiger on a leash).

I'm glad that tomorrow the fate of the nation rests in the hands of old, underemployed, high-school educated white women from rural Pennsylvania who hate black people. They will speak for us, and they will send a loud and clear message to those Superdelegates that if they let some smooth-talking Muslim gangsta win the nomination, then they've clearly lost their minds and deserve to have John McCain as their President, who at least has passed the Commander in Chief test and would be better than some guy who gave a speech in 2004.

Let The Spin Begin

As the Republicans begin to realize they are actually up against Barack Obama in November, and not Her Royal Highness, Queen Hillary the Annointed, they are actively emailing those who like to think Obama is a Muslim , or that he attended a Madrasa, or that his pastor hates America, or that his name is eerily similar to Osama's.

An email I received today contained this obviously Photoshopped image of Senator Obama talking on the phone. Problem is, the stupid, ignorant, inexperienced, naive and not-ready-to-be Commander in Chief Obama doesn't know how to hold a phone in a photo-op.

It doesn't take long to find the real image, as if the cartoon clock on the wall wasn't a dead giveaway that the photo was faked.

And to show you that Senator Obama not only knows how to handle a phone, but can handle two phones at once while simultaneously gesturing and winking to a photographer, here's an image from the Associated Press. That dude has some serious multitaskin' skilz.

Let the spin begin.

There's a war on, and there are some people very afraid of an Obama Presidency, so afraid that they will have you believe that the man doesn't know how to hold a phone.

I haven't placed an Obama sticker on my car. I haven't posted an Obama sign in my yard. I haven't donated to the Obama campaign. But if this keeps up, I may just have to.

At the Risk of Alienating...

...some of my readers, I'm going to go out on a limb here and defend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Senator Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years.

It's seriously not fashionable in this week's political climate to say anything good about Wright. He has uttered what are being roundly criticized as "inflammatory" and "divisive" comments. He has said things that are "unAmerican." Obama himself has been forced, in the interest of political expediency, to distance himself from his own pastor.

But if we look at who is making the loudest protestations about Reverend Wright, we find the usual suspects who long ago linked their flag with their God. "God Bless America" is not a prayer in the minds of these people. It is a demand. It is their right. It is expected. "God, you will bless America, and you will do it now!" They are also, by and large, White men who know NOTHING of the Black experience in America. These are the people most inclined to wave the "support the troops" banners, yet few of them ever served in the military. These are the people, who while claiming to love the God of the Bible (the God of Israel) will tell you with complete conviction, that, "America is the greatest land God ever gave this planet."

Do you seriously want to make that boast to the God of Israel?

Reverend Wright said that we as a country have done terrible things. Reverend Wright said that we as a country have some explaining to do to our God. Reverend Wright said that we as a country are not nearly what we claim to be. And I agree with him 100%. I have been saying the same things for eight years, though not as blatantly, as I learned quickly that knee-jerk "patriots" will not be able to hear you if you don't speak their language.

And have not the James Dobsons of the world been decrying the "sins" of America for decades? Didn't Jerry Fallwell call 9/11 God's judgement?

How is Jeremiah Wright any different?

Once again, to my Christian friends who have wrapped Jesus in the Stars and Stripes: Jesus is not an American. He sure as hell is not a Republican. And he damn well hates your nationalistic pride.

I guarantee it.

Lady Liberty has become a whore, and American Christianity is nothing more than cheap costume jewelry.

A prophet has no honor in his own country.
Gospel of John, 4:44

Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle

And other tongue-in-cheek wonderful things Barack Obama is doing for you, over at this website. Keep clicking the text for more. If this is the work of the Clinton campaign, I have to begrudgingly say, "Well played." Someone has found a funny, subtle way to say what the Clintons have been trying to say, but they are too inept to convey it without stepping on their tongues.

UPDATE: It's the work of Mat Honan of San Francisco, and there are already some great knock-offs. Apparently Mat's girlfriend/wife is a total Obama freak and he invented that saying as a jab at her.