by David Misch

Calm down, folks -- I guarantee that Sarah Palin's performance on Thursday will be coherent and articulate. Why? Has everyone forgotten Bush's first debate ?

But... what if something goes wrong?

-- Gwen, that's a great question. Legal immigration is one of America's historic strengths, perhaps best expressed by Emmett Lazarus's 1883 poem "The New Colossal", which begins...

-- Ms. Palin, I have to remind you the question was about abortion.

-- (Pause) Abortion! Shit! Who's on that? Stan, what the fuck? Sorry sorry, they're right next to each other. Abortion and Immigration? Abortion's the first one! No, that's Air Quality. We're missing a page! Let her talk, she knows abortion. No, we can't trust -- Shit, she's still repeating what we're saying! Sarah, stop talking! (Pause) Okay, now -- Sarah, stop talking! Just listen to what I say! (Pause)

"Gwen, that's a great question. Reverence for life is one of America's historic strengths, though it's a bit more reverently when it's a tiny baby than a full-grown slut who's just askin' for it.

My fellow Alaskans, rape is something to which I'm opposed to, but part of the problem is that Alaska has a narrow maritime border involving water. It only takes a canoe or a submarine or some other water-resistant vehicle to breach the defenses of our super-awesome National Guard, allowing entire brigades of raping Russians, under the direct supervision of Leonid Putin, to attack our cities, attempting to undermine our economy.

Because make no mistake about it, those rape kits are darn expensive and whose responsibility should paying for them be? The state of Alaska isn't made of money though, technically, since it's built on shale, it is, but we have many other responsibilities, bridges and roads to destinations so vital they don't exist yet, and gas pipelines which also don't exist but could, and" -- Shut up! Shut up! I found it! Ready?

-- SQWARRRK!!! Next on KISS FM, "Smack Down Yo Bitch" by -- What the fuck?! What's the frequency, Kenneth? Then change it! Sarah, you're still repeating what we say. Screw it, guys, we're made. Go to Emergency Plan C -- throw her a shotgun and release the moose!

By Chris Kelly

"Evil must be defeated!" -- John McCain 8/16/08

"Enough is enough! We're going to put an end to greed!" -- John McCain 9/17/08

It's inspiring to know that John McCain has a plan to end greed. I just hope it doesn't distract him from his mission to defeat evil. Either way, it has to kick the shit out of whatever Barack Obama's got on the docket, with his empty words and pie-in-the-sky promises.

America's choice is clear. Barack Obama, a messianic egomaniac who thinks he's, like, our savior or something, or John McCain, who will defeat evil and put an end to greed.

John McCain will not only take on special interests and Washington insiders, he'll fundamentally alter human nature. And without raising taxes, either. He'll lead us to a sort of martial nirvana where all other emotions are replaced with patriotism, and turn the United States into a shining, selfless, bipartisan cross between heaven and Sparta.

Or maybe he's just a desperate shell of a man, babbling glorp.

If Reverend Wright went around shouting stuff like "We're going to put an end to greed!" people would start thinking he was some kind of fruitcake.

--

You might think "I'll end greed" would be the most mortifying thing John McCain could say at one sitting. You'd be wrong. At Wednesday's town hall -- his first with Sarah Palin -- he topped himself with this explanation of her credentials:

"She has been commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard. Fact. On September 11 a contingent of the Guard deployed to Iraq and her son happened to be one of them so I think she understands national security challenges."

Which is fine except:

The governor of Alaska doesn't command the National Guard in combat overseas.

Sarah Palin didn't deploy anyone anywhere on September 11th. She was a guest speaker at an Army deployment ceremony.

Track Palin isn't in the National Guard; he's in the Army.

Sometimes it seems like it's more than John McCain can handle, just keeping all the lies about Sarah Palin straight in his head. Tomorrow he'll say she's in the Air Force herself, on a plane she bought on eBay, bombing the bridges at Toko-Ri.

--

It's all Shiites and Sunnis to John McCain. So what's your problem? We're told that Lord Raglan fought the entire Crimean War believing the Russians were the French. And that worked out okay because, uh, everyone under his command died.

--

"I know how to win wars! I know how to win wars!" -- John McCain 7/15/08

I know this is a sort of threadbare exercise -- the old switcheroo -- but imagine what would happen if Barack Obama got the Army and the National Guard mixed up.

More at the Huffington Post:

Andy Borowitz: McCain Proposes Sending Troops to South America to Invade Spain

Billy Kimball: Shocking New Video Calls Palin's Qualifications into Question

Richard Gizbert: McCain's Childish Act Is Enough To Outsmart Media

By Bob Cesca

Wednesday's edition of Morning Joe on MSNBC was especially ridiculous. And Pat Buchanan wasn't even there, which meant that everyone else had to overcompensate to make up for the conspicuous absence of awful.

Back story: Senator Obama released a two-minute commercial about the economic crisis -- also known as "the worst financial crisis in a century," according Alan Greenspan and Mort Zuckerman. It's a smart, effective ad that serves two purposes: it outlines what Obama plans to do about the crisis, and it continues to hammer home Senator Obama as a tough yet presidential would-be chief executive and steward of the economy.

Yet despite the seriousness of this crisis, Joe Scarborough (along with Wee Willie Geist and Salon's Joan Walsh, oddly enough) mocked the ad for its lack of soundbytes and its abundance of specifics.

Lack. Of soundbytes.

Now there's an argument to be made in favor of short, pithy framing in politics, but this isn't a short, pithy crisis. It's a crisis that's nailing ordinary Americans quite literally in their own back yards. It's entirely symptomatic of 30 years of Republican deregulation and Reaganomics. 30 years of free market wingnut crapola culminating in something close to the Great Depression, with Senator McCain quoting Herbert Hoover dozens of times this year alone -- and, what? A two minute commercial is too long, Joe? Are you so basted in savory McCain barbecue sauce, Joe, that your candidate's cluelessness has, by some form of dry rub osmosis, infected your already shovel-shaped view of this global disaster?

Soundbytes and nonspecifics. Yessir. That's just what (and I repeat) the worst financial crisis in a century deserves. Soundbytes and nonspecifics like, "The fundamentals of the economy are strong." Heckuva job. Your candidate is a total doof when it comes to the economy, Joe. Admit it.

So then, with the addition of Newsweek 's very serious Jon Meacham, the very serious conversation evolved into concern-trolling about the polls. Why, Scarborough wondered, is Senator Obama not way ahead of McCain in the polls? Why is the race so tight?

Hmm. I can't imagine why that is. It's not like Senator Obama's patriotism and character is being assassinated for three hours every morning on cable news -- six hours if we include the spasmodic howler monkeys on FOX & Friends. I can't imagine why the polls are so close when Joe Scarborough is helping his Republican allies to once again turn this critical national debate into another blind recitation of Lee Greenwood lyrics .

Why are the polls so close? Not only do around 25 percent of Americans watch FOX News Channel on a regular basis, but, from coast to coast, there are more than a thousand far-right talk radio stations occupied by shows that make Morning Joe sound like an Olbermann Special Comment. And 17 percent of Americans are glued to it at work and in their cars. Talkers like Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity, John Gibson, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Bill Bennett and Glenn Beck broadcast on your public air around the clock. Non-stop. Unrelenting. Only interrupted by Accu-weather and traffic. Free to anyone with an AM radio.

I don't know if you've dared to listen to far-right talk radio lately, but I can assure you that they're not ignoring Senator Obama -- or his family. Put it this way: if you only got your news and opinions from talk radio, you'd probably believe that Senator Obama is some kind of foreign-born baby-killing Manchurian Candidate terrorist -- if not a sexist uppity black man who, if he loses in November, will incite race riots in every city.

Last night, Keith Olbermann reported that convicted Watergate burglar and radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy continues to insist that Senator Obama was born in Kenya and that his birth certificate is a forgery. Lies. Debunked months ago by numerous nonpartisan experts .

Sean Hannity continues to beat the Reverend Wright and William Ayers drums every chance he gets while making wild claims that Senator Obama is an anti-white bigot .

Alleged sex-tourist Rush Limbaugh , whose show is carried in almost every American city, is routinely accusing Senator Obama of infanticide and referring to him as a "little black man-child," clearly stopping short of blurting out the name "Sambo," thus indicating that the drugs seem to have left intact a shred of discretion in Limbaugh's otherwise melty cheese brain.

And that's just three of the more popular hosts out of hundreds more. There's Mike Gallagher, Lars Larson, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley, Mike Savage, Dennis Prager, Neil Boortz, Bill Hussein Cunningham -- the list goes on and on. Nothing is out of bounds. Devoid of shame and accountability. Inventing its own stories and spreading lies in soundbyte chunks easily passed along via listeners to non-listener friends and family.

We too-often overlook the influence of far-right talk radio given the overproduced, groomed-monkeys on far-right cable news shows. So radio talkers too often operate with impunity and a dangerous lack of watchdogging despite their market saturation -- their menacing ubiquity. Consequently, concern-trolls like Joe Scarborough and Jon Meacham can go on television and thump their chests -- questioning why-God-why have the Democrats only won three of the last ten presidential elections?! What's wrong with these foreign-sounding, smarty-pants Democrats who, as Meacham mentioned today, are incapable of "speaking American."

Could it be -- I don't know, just a hunch -- that the opinions of perhaps a third of all Americans are shaped by FOX News Channel, cable news shows like Morning Joe and, especially, far-right talk radio? Could it be that the lies and blind-patriotism of these far-right propagandists are painting an historic, brilliant, accomplished, patriotic presidential candidate as some kind of Bin Laden meets Farrakhan chimera? 24 hours a day? In every town in the Union? Distracting Americans from this economic crisis and skewing their priorities -- making pocketbook issues seem less important than bullshit lies. And political hacks still wonder why half of Americans vote against their financial interests every two years. Joe Scarborough still wonders out loud why Senator Obama isn't 20 points ahead in the polls.

Riddle me this, Joe. Given the ideological landscape of cable news, talk radio and the nefarious lie-based caricature therein of Obama as a black-power, fetus-crushing Muslim terrorist, why isn't John McCain 20 points ahead in polls?

Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! Go!

More at the Huffington Post:

Andy Borowitz: McCain Proposes Sending Troops to South America to Invade Spain

Billy Kimball: Shocking New Video Calls Palin's Qualifications into Question

Richard Gizbert: McCain's Childish Act Is Enough To Outsmart Media

By Michael Seitzman

She said "nucular." Twice.

I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to "first wipe off Palin's tranny makeup." I married well.)

Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched that interview and weren't scared out of your freakin' mind, then you're mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed. What you are NOT is responsible, informed, curious, thoughtful, mature, educated, empathetic, or remotely serious. I mean it.

But I like to think that anyone can change.

Stop voting for people you want to have a beer with. Stop voting for folksy. Stop voting for people who remind you of your neighbor. Stop voting for the ideologically intransigent, the staggeringly ignorant, and the blazingly incompetent.

Vote for someone smarter than you. Vote for someone who inspires you. Vote for someone who has not only traveled the world but who has also shown a deep understanding and compassion for it. The stakes are real and they're terrifyingly high. This election matters. It matters. It really matters. Let me say that one more time. This. Really. Matters.

UPDATE: Sexist? Not So Fast

More at the Huffington Post:

Andy Borowitz: McCain Proposes Sending Troops to South America to Invade Spain

Billy Kimball: Shocking New Video Calls Palin's Qualifications into Question

Richard Gizbert: McCain's Childish Act Is Enough To Outsmart Media

By Alexis C. Jolly

The cliché is to say that Sarah Palin would only be a heartbeat away from the presidency if she and John McCain win the election. My theory? We're talking about the wrong body part.

Bear with me on this one: everyone can admit that Sarah Palin is hot. Everyone can also admit that John McCain is old. Creepily old. Like, if you were to take away the makeup and the lights, he'd probably look like Emperor Palpatine in the early (and by "early," I mean "not terrible") Star Wars movies. So the first time Vice President Palin sashays into the Oval Office and leans over the Resolute desk to ask President McCain a question, what's left of his old man blood is going to rush belowdecks, and the next thing we know McCain dies with a smile on his face and President Sarah Palin is the one behind the desk.

This is a problem. Though not because of Sarah Palin's political beliefs. The great thing about America is that if enough voters wanted a candidate to legalize eating dead babies, McDonalds would have an extra item on the Dollar Menu by the end of the week. I still have faith in our system, and believe that those in office will both share and shape the convictions of the majority of voting Americans.

This is also not a problem because Sarah Palin lies. All politicians lie. As John McCain probably remembers, Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 by promising to keep us out of World War One; one year later, he began sending 4.3 million American troops on an all-expense tour of Europe. I don't even have to mention Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, and the rest of those wild and crazy guys. So yeah, Sarah actually did support The Bridge to Nowhere when she was running for governor ... and being close to a country doesn't really count as foreign policy experience (I can see the apartment complex swimming pool from my window, this does not make me Michael Phelps)... and it's easy to say you oppose government spending while allowing federal spending per person in Alaska to rise from 38% above the national average to 71% above between 1996 and 2006. But like I said, bears don't have indoor plumbing, the Pope wears a hat he probably thinks is pretty damn cool, and politicians lie.

So it's not her politics, it's not her lies... just what's wrong with Sarah Palin? Good question. And one which I'll answer by telling you a little bit about the homeless guy who parks himself on the corner near my Los Angeles apartment.

We'll call him Steve, for the sake of anonymity. And for the sake that I don't actually know his name. So, Steve the Homeless Guy. Steve and I both like whiskey, old corduroy jackets, and shouting at women, so I feel like we have a lot in common. Sometimes, when I'm feeling generous (read: got laid the night before), I'll treat him to a beef bowl at the nearby Yoshinoya restaurant. Though, if you ask me, those beef bowls look better coming out than they do going in. And probably taste better that way.

Anyway, Steve may also share my support for free trade; my belief that a good energy policy is the only thing that's going to keep us from living in Ice Age: The Meltdown if we don't get completely blown to hell by the Russians, Iranians, or other -ians first; and my hope that everybody has access to a solid enough education that they're not going to end up like those kids at the end of season four of The Wire , having to choose between getting beat up for snitching or slinging drugs (and not the fun kind of drugs, either).

But just because we've got all this stuff in common, it doesn't mean I want good old Steve kicking his feet back in the Oval Office--one hand on the big red button and the other one fighting off the invisible elephants he's convinced are out to get him.

Why? Because Steve hasn't exactly wowed anyone with his achievements in life. Neither has Sarah Palin. Like she said at the Republican National Convention, Sarah Palin is "not a member of the permanent political establishment." Nope, she was "just your average hockey mom."

Granted, she was probably just being modest, but let's take a look at what Sarah Palin actually has accomplished. In her youth, Sarah Palin was captain of her high school basketball team, and runner up in the Miss Alaska contest. She then switched between five colleges in six years, before graduating from the University of Idaho.

Next, she beat out a local telephone company employee to serve on the city council of Wasilla, Alaska, where she helped keep the local bars open an extra two hours a night. She was soon elected mayor, and was apparently pretty damn popular among her citizens. In case it's been a while since you last visited, Wasilla's official population is 7,028, and the total local city annual revenue is $12,695,563. As a point of reference, Danny DeVito, esteemed actor and -- I kid you not -- voice of "Grundle King" in My Little Pony: The Movie , put his house on the market for $32 million. So two and a half times Wasilla's total annual revenue.

Since then, Palin's served as Alaska's governor, though for less than two years. During that time, she authorized the state to allow TransCanada Alaska to build a natural gas pipeline, and set aside $741 million out of an estimated $2.7 billion in taxes raised from oil companies to distribute among qualified Alaskan citizens. She also sold off the state's private jet and fired her standard-issue personal chef as means of getting rid of unnecessary government spending. Though in my mind, the fact that Alaska ranks only behind New Mexico in the federal spending to tax ratio sort of makes this like saying you're going to stop putting sugar in your coffee to cut back on fat, while stuffing your face with a fried Twinkie at the state fair. But that's just me.

So we see she's gotten a few things done, and has definitely earned at least a polite golf clap. But now let's check how her accomplishments hold up to a few celebrated presidents and vice presidents from both sides of the political spectrum before they took office.

Thomas Jefferson graduated from William and Mary at eighteen with the highest honors, became a lawyer and served in the Virginian state Burgess, authored the Declaration of Independence, served as minister to France, was appointed George Washington's first secretary of state, and was John Adams's vice president, before becoming president himself.

Abraham Lincoln, born into far crappier circumstances than Jefferson, managed to go from being the son of two uneducated farmers to serving as a captain in the Black Hawk War, educating himself in the classics and law, spending eight years in the Illinois legislature, riding the circuit of courts for many years, and serving as a member of the House of Representatives before becoming one of our greatest presidents and telling people who thought owning slaves was cool to go fuck themselves.

Jumping ahead, before ending the Cold War with the USSR and forcing everyone to turn those ugly bomb shelters into the foosball table room, Ronald Regan was a world famous actor, served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, toured the country as a conservative television host, and served twice as governor of California -- the US's most populated state.

You get the idea. If you want, Google just about any great leader, past or present, and you'll find a similar list of accomplishments. I, on the other hand, generally consider it a good day if I wake up before noon. The difference between those men and Sarah Palin and me is that each of them proved he had what it takes to lead the world's only superpower before taking office -- not only by accumulating insane amounts of political, legal, and social experience, but by being so good at those things that they generally made everybody else around them look like a real asshole.

Sarah Palin hasn't shown she's that great at anything, other than crinkling her nose and being charming. I respect her and can relate to her as a person, as I'm sure many people can. Most of us have felt out of place at some point in our education. And love our families deeply. And want to improve the government, whatever that may mean to us. And basically, like Sarah Palin, most of us have had to settle for Miss Congeniality rather than Miss Alaska in the beauty pageant of life. But just because we can relate to her in so many ways doesn't mean she should be in a position to become the leader of the free world. In fact, it means she shouldn't.

History has proven that the greatest presidents are smarter than us, are harder working, and somehow seem to achieve more over the course of brushing their teeth than we will in a lifetime. In short, they have the ability to be extraordinary. I don't have that ability, neither does Sarah Palin, and that's okay so long as Americans realize this should mean the only way she and I are getting into the White House is by lining up for the official tour.

In the mean time, Sarah can join Steve and me at the Yoshinoya. Compared to the beef, their chicken bowls aren't actually all that bad.

More at the Huffington Post:

Andy Borowitz: McCain Proposes Sending Troops to South America to Invade Spain

Billy Kimball: Shocking New Video Calls Palin's Qualifications into Question

Richard Gizbert: McCain's Childish Act Is Enough To Outsmart Media

By David Rees

News Alert! Some fancy lady named Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild has decided that Barack Obama is an "elitist" and therefore she's going to endorse John McCain.

Is this the greatest news factoid of all time?

Answer: YES.

It turns out ol' Lady Lynn Forester der von Rothschild -- who "splits her time time between London and New York" -- was a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. (For some reason, I suddenly feel overwhelming sympathy for Sen. Clinton.)

After Obama beat Clinton in the Democratic primary, Lady de Rothschild was probably like, "Boo-hoo, my candidate lost, waah waah, nothing ever goes my way! Jeeves, please lower me into my diamond bathtub -- which is filled with real diamonds -- and shampoo my hair with the triple-distilled tears of orphans. Also, I command you to perform a champagne enema on one of my fine Arabian stallions while I liveblog it on my solid gold typepad account. C'est tres magnificique! (sp?)"

In a display of the trenchant policy analysis that has made her famous, Madame Lady Lynn Forest Whittaker de Rothschild von Pooter explained her McCain endorsement by saying of Obama:

"Frankly, I don't like him."

(As an Obama supporter, I would humbly request that Ladyboo Lynn de Forester von Chili Con Carne travel around the country, greeting voters and announcing that she doesn't like Barack Obama. Please don't forget to wear one of those floofy, flouncey scarves that you can buy at the MoMA store, and also please don't forget to sneer at everyone. May I also request that you wear all your jewels at once?)

I'm sure Obama will lose a lot of sleep over this. I know he was craving the endorsement. After all, we're talking about Baroness Lassie Lynn de von Forester d'el der McRothschild von de Beers VIII, the type of lady every American can relate to and wants to be friends with and definitely doesn't laugh at as soon as she turns her back (to check on her portfolio of private planets she owns).

Maybe now she and Cindy McCain can go shopping together and buy jewels at Cartier and be all like, "Ooh girl, that gem looks so good on your earlobe!" or whatever it is stupid rich old ladies do all day.

More at the Huffington Post:

Andy Borowitz: McCain Proposes Sending Troops to South America to Invade Spain

Billy Kimball: Shocking New Video Calls Palin's Qualifications into Question

Richard Gizbert: McCain's Childish Act Is Enough To Outsmart Media