Why I Love Joe Biden:

And why I love the Daily Show:

I have to share this with somebody:

I was feeling the need to feel the need to throw a running chain saw at my TV, so I flipped on the RNC.

The first thing I see is a delegate holding a sign that said RAISIN' McCAIN.

Unfortunately for her, the apostrophe wasn't very apparent.

Let's compare...

This:

To this (some of the most honest reporting I've ever seen):

McCain's Brain

This is too funny to not post.

best line: "I think I am having a stroke."

Palin is a Slap in Voters' Faces

I'm back from Denver and almost seething about McCain's pick, because it is confirmation of one of things I hate the most about 2008 McCain.

He has only contempt for the American voter.

How else do you explain picking a VP solely for electoral reasons?

He picked Palin because she's interesting, fresh, personable, young, attractive, and female. Twenty months ago she was mayor of a town of 6,500 residents and now she could be one heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world. Are you serious? This pick does not even pass the laugh test.

Now Republicans might argue the same about Obama, but Obama was state senator for 8 years, has worked with Dick Lugar to secure loose nukes, has worked with Tom Coburn to pass ethics reform, has sat on the Senate Armed Services committee for over 3 years now, and has proven his competence, temperament, communications skills, and ability to act under pressure over the past 19 months of campaigning.

So, yes, I do buy the "experience" argument despite counterexamples such as Abe Lincoln vs. Dick Cheney, and Palin simply does not have the breadth of experience to be the VP. She doesn't even know what a VP does.

I met New York Times columnist David Brooks in the Denver airport today. I said hello and that I was a fan (which is true because I always enjoy reading his columns even if I don't agree with them) and I asked him what he thought of Sarah Palin. He said, "I don't know what to think." I responded, "I don't know what he was thinking" and I walked away.

But now I've figured out what he was thinking, and this is why I think he has nothing but contempt for the average voter. He believes Americans will support this pick because she's a "hockey mom" or a "hunter" or attractive and female. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: "Sarah Palin, you are no Hillary Clinton."

I'm from a small town of about 5,000 people, not much smaller than Wasilla, AK. My mayor also happens to be a freeholder in my county government. My county has more people than the entire state of Alaska. Can I imagine my mayor as VP? How about my county executive? Hell no. I can't even imagine the mayor of a city of comparable size to Alaska, like Fort Worth, TX or Memphis, TN being VP.

So Sarah Palin. The pro-life, pro-drilling, pro-creationism bullshit doesn't bother me as much as the total lack of reason you should be any part of this election.

After Americans answer the question, "who the fuck is Sarah Palin?" The next questions will be "Why Sarah Palin?" and "Are you serious?"

For those of you who don't know me well, my parents are swing voters (Gore in 2000, Bush in 2004). My mom told me she won't vote for McCain because of this pick. I hope all independents react the same way.

Joe Biden will wipe the floor with her.

Update: Oh my god. She has only traveled abroad twice, to Ireland, Germany and Kuwait. I hope the analogy will be made to Bush who didn't travel before becoming President and I hope Americans are sick and tired of political leaders who have no intellectual curiosity and aren't students of the world. Sure I'm part of the "intellectual elite" but good lord....

Sarah Palin: Enemy of Polar Bears

So, like many of you I learned yesterday that John McCain is aiming to put a gun-totin', beauty pageant winnin', hockey mom one 72-year-old's heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world. After I stopped laughing, I decided to spend my time learning about Ms. Palin, both the good and the bad.

But I didn't have time to comb over some of the lesser-reported parts of her 18-month tenure as a state-elected official. That's why I have a twin brother. Tim emailed me a link that made my jaw drop. I am now sure that McCain will lose the support of all the fans of the Golden Compass, because Palin is a blatant enemy of nature's white-furred warrior, the polar bear.

And why, you may ask, does Ms. Palin want to end the threatened species listing for polar bears? According to the article:

She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts.

Palin argued there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said.

Really? With all the ice melting in the arctic, I would think we would want to do all we can to help save animals that can be as cute and cuddly as this:

McCain picks Sarah Palin

The VP pick: Sarah Palin, a first-term governor of Alaska.

I'm interested in your thoughts, but here are a couple of mine.

There are a number of advantages to the pick, but a lot of them seem short-term. From a media perspective, this certainly caught both the press and the Obama campaign - Palin flew under the radar and the campaign, as far as I can tell, hasn't yet issued a reaction. The pick was surprising enough that it will push aside a lot of the coverage of Obama's speech at the convention last night. Picking a woman, and a governor who came to office partly on her promises that she would clean up Alaska's notoriously scandal-ridden political system, gives a much-needed shot in the arm to McCain's maverick reputation, given that the Democrats have spent the past four days assailing Big Mac as a continuation of the Bush administration. Picking a candidate who's relatively unknown offers the McCain campaign the chance to control the narrative about Palin, while the Obama campaign is still looking for a response.

But I think most of these advantages will fade out well before the election. No matter how well the GOP constructs the narrative surrounding Palin, I don't think there's anything in her record that even suggests foreign policy experience - meaning that McCain's key argument that Obama lacks the experience to be commander-in-chief applies doubly to Palin. I don't think McCain and Palin have ever really worked together, unless I'm missing something, which means that aside from enemies, nobody really knows yet if they have anything in common. If the chemistry works out, it could help balance out McCain's image, but if it doesn't, she could just make him look old and awkward - a crapshoot there. And although women may be excited in the short term, it would be a gross underestimation of Hillary Clinton's supporters to assume that identity politics alone could pull them over to the Republican side. While there was tremendous enthusiasm among quite a few women (and not a few men!) about the possibility of electing the first female president, that enthusiasm was rooted in the fact that Hillary had a strong record on women's issues. That enthusiasm, among the vast majority of Hillary supporters that I know, was hardly so shallow as to be transferable to the next woman who comes along. Instead McCain is dealing with a political unknown who undercuts the biggest argument he can make against Barack Obama.

Oh, and apparently her learning curve would be pretty steep.

Your thoughts?

What Exactly Does the VP Do?

Go to 2:50

Not buying it

My sister alerted me to this brand-new McCain ad:

I'm not sure where to start. There's one thing to be said about the fact that the GOP now thinks it's appropriate to use Hillary Clinton, circa New Hampshire, as their attack dog for John McCain, in the present. There's another lesson to learn about the dangers of an overly negative primary (forgive me, I just finished reading Josh Green's dissection of the Clinton implosion, so the whole Mark Penn thing is still stuck in my head). There's some gendered reading, which maybe I'll get to.

But the most obvious point is: This is very, very clear gender-baiting, and race certainly isn't absent from the picture, either. This is as close as the campaign can get to openly calling out women who are still unhappy with Hillary's primary loss without tossing around the word "bitter" (remember how that worked for Obama?). The subtext is: "Ladies, still upset about the primary? Vote your revenge - McCain '08!" I can think of no other reason why the McCain campaign would suddenly lionize a woman with whom its candidate has virtually no policy agreements. The ad reads remarkably like Jesse Helms' infamous "Hands" ad, which showed a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter while the somber-voiced narrator blames it on affirmative action. Here again, the young upstart snatches the job from the deserving candidate, the one who had been waiting patiently in line (if you're a little uncomfortable with Obama's race) or the one who had overcome so much prejudice and broken so many barriers just to become a contender (if gender is your bag). He doesn't deserve it; he stole what is rightfully ours. John McCain will put things right again.

Here is how I wish we would respond: We're not buying it, and John McCain can't manipulate us. It's true that, no matter how hard we've tried to pretend, gender has been omnipresent in this election. Millions of women supported Hillary Clinton not only because they believed she would be the best leader for America, but also because they believed it was damn well time for a woman to break the highest glass ceiling in American politics. Millions of other women, including me, supported Barack Obama even as we recognized that Hillary's achievement was historic, inspirational, and groundbreaking. Gender was and still is a factor, yes, but John McCain can't just trot out photos of the most high-profile woman in American politics and expect to tug so strongly at our heartstrings that we'll just swing on over to his side. We won't buy that cheap trick, and here's why.

We won't buy it because, no matter what the GOP's strategists might think, women, just as well as men, can see right through emotional appeal when the facts demonstrate that John McCain has consistently stood in the way of equal rights and equal opportunity for women. If the Democrats do their job, women in the United States will be aware that John McCain, at least when he can recall, voted not once but twice against requiring insurance companies to cover birth control, so that income will not prevent anyone from gaining control over her body. We should know that McCain skipped the vote on, and would have opposed, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have helped women seeking legal remedies to pay discrimination. We ought to realize that McCain has an abysmal record when it comes to protecting a woman's right to choose, instead presuming that his belief that life begins at conception ought to be enshrined in policy rather than left for women to decide. We will remember that McCain supports federal funding for abstinence-only education, even though the curricula are ineffective and riddled with factual errors. The list goes on, but suffice it to say: Those of us who look at the facts are well aware that John McCain can try to exploit us by using Hillary Clinton's image, but we simply aren't having it any more.

My Two Current Loves

A. I love this:

I hope the Obama campaign continues attacks along this line (i.e. painting McCain as 'out of touch') and doesn't shift focus too soon.

B. I still love Jack Reed for VP. Not so much Bayh any more, I prefer Biden to Bayh. But the more I think about it the more I am smitten with Jack Reed. He may have momentarily replaced Bill Richardson (but not Bob Graham) in that special place in my heart.

Obviously, I like this stuff too much...

Required Reading

Everyone needs to read this post by Phillip Butler, a Vietnam vet who was a POW with John McCain.  It's probably the single most effective piece I've read on McCain's personality, temper, and time as a POW.  He phrases his arguments far better than I can, so I won't bother summarizing him here.  What's important, though, is that this is how Democrats can breach McCain's "shield" of military service.  It's similar to what Wes Clark said a few months back, but loses the brash, confrontational tone.  While he's obviously partisan, the most effective parts of the writing are when he simply states the facts about John McCain's life, without any opinion.  Get this story out on TV, and maybe we can finally start to have a real debate between the candidates, and not this "You can't question me since I was a POW, but I can make insinuations about the other guy's patriotism all I want since he looks different" crap that's characterized the campaign so far.

When Thomas Friedman is Right

After peering at Eva's post, which talked about the failures of the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, I decided to take a look at Thomas Friedman's column for this week.

And yes, despite his many failings, he does occasionally write a solid column. While his latest piece is a bit late, he definitely came up with a respectable critique of McCain's so called support for renewable energy and gave a solid justification for why production tax credits are necessary. Many Republicans don't realize that renewable energy projects that would mean thousands of well-paying jobs are literally on hold because companies don't know what to expect with the production tax credits.

While most of his column was old news, there was one bit that made me chuckle and cry:

Roger Efird is president of Suntech America — a major Chinese-owned solar panel maker that actually wants to build a new factory in America. They’ve been scouting the country for sites, and several governors have been courting them. But Efird told me that when the solar credits failed to pass the Senate, his boss told him: “Don’t set up any more meetings with governors. It makes absolutely no sense to do this if we don’t have stability in the incentive programs.”

Yes, that's right: Chinese-owned companies are trying to create jobs into the US, but we won't let them. I don't think middle America knew about that one, but boy, that's an ugly twist of fate.

While I am tangentially ranting, I must also say that McCain's recent response to Obama's first national ad made me puke. In fact, any time he pretends to support renewable energy makes me cringe, as it does when almost any Republican says he or she does. If you really support renewable energy, then you could have bothered to show up to vote one of the EIGHT TIMES the bill came to the floor, as Thomas Friedman mentioned. No, renewable energy is not John McCain, even if you hire someone to say it in that dark and scary attack ad voice. That is assuming, of course, that we won't figure out how to produce electricity from personal character attacks and politically convenient lies.

Friedman did take a tiny shot at Obama for only showing up for three of the votes (which is unmerited, considering that it was obvious that Obama would come back if his vote would make a difference), but I'm willing to give it to his desire to appear to be "fair and balanced", for whatever that's worth.

When someone unfairly attacks Obama for voting present, remind them of the tough votes that Obama managed to take his time for this year that McCain somehow missed, from the War Supplemental with the GI Bill to the bill that saved Medicare. Talk about being afraid to take a stance.

T-shirts for McCain

Eugene Kane, one of the more interesting columnists in my esteemed local paper, has been on a kick recently about a blog he discovered called "Black Men for McCain." Kane, a black man who is pretty clearly not for McCain, is puzzled about this phenomenon. I am not surprised the website exists, but I'm not totally mystified as to why McCain doesn't seem to have attracted a particularly large following among African-Americans. Among other reasons, apparently they're not even trying. As our mysterious blogger points out, a quick perusal of the McCain Store's t-shirt section reveals apparel catering to all kinds of ethnic groups: Irish for McCain, Asians and Pacific Islanders for McCain, Jewish Americans for McCain, Arab Americans for McCain, and Hispanics for McCain. Dads, moms, women, sportsmen, business leaders, first responders, future leaders, veterans of all five services (yeah, that's right, the Coast Guard made the cut), and Americans with disabilities can all proudly display their group-specific allegiance to John McCain. There is no Obscenely Wealthy People for McCain shirt, but you can buy a $200 fleece jacket - MORE EXPENSIVE THAN NORTHFACE - to showcase your status and poor judgment with one all-weather garment. And Bikers for McCain - truly his favorite constituency - get not only a t-shirt but also a bumper sticker, a helmet sticker, and a bandanna. But there is no T-shirt for African-Americans for McCain.

Subsequently, commenters pointed out that African-Americans for McCain can, in fact, purchase a T-shirt, a key chain, a button, or a bumper stickers - but you have to search the store for them. I smell a conspiracy.

McCain discovers Wikipedia

Taegan Goddard passes on a tip from a Wikipedia editor that John McCain's speech on the crisis in Georgia bore some striking similarities to the country's Wikipedia entry.

For instance, McCain describes Georgia as

one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion

where Wikipedia describes it as

one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion.

Or, McCain says:

After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.

Wikipedia says:

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis.

Far be it from me to sling accusations of plagiarism - I leave that to Hillary Clinton - but this looks awfully sketchy to me. On the plus side, if McCain really is going to be the president, I'm glad he (well, his speechwriter) is at least getting his facts from somewhere, even if the average high school teacher would consider it unworthy of citation. Think how much trouble he could have saved himself if he'd just read the Wikipedia article for Czechoslovakia. Next step in the McCain Personal Technological Literacy Plan: realize that some blogger, somewhere, will rapidly catch on to the fact that you used Wikipedia to formulate your foreign policy.

I Don't Know Why I Like This Video So Much

But I do.

(Warning: Not safe for work)