BartBlog

September 11, 2008

The Tattlesnake – H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks Mom and Other Randomized Media Bleat Edition

Bush Two in a Pantsuit
or, Summer and Smoke and Mirrors

“…[T]he media is failing to apply the same standard to John McCain [and Sarah Palin] that they did to Al Gore in 2000.”
– DDay, “Why The Media Game Is Rigged,” Digby’s Hullabaloo, Sept. 9, 2008.

– It’s becoming pretty obvious that McCain’s Veep pick, Sarah Palin, regardless of the GOP blustering over her ‘smarts,’ is actually just the Bush Boy in a Beehive, a crackpot-religion dingbat from the Great White North with a predisposition to pathological deceit, close ties to big energy corporations, a willingness to use taxpayer money to help herself and her family, disregard for the law, and a slave of Talking Points with a lack of curiosity about, or grasp of, the world around her. While she may not mangle the English language as much as the Installed One, she hews to the same repetition of bumper-sticker slogans and shows her deep ignorance whenever she goes off-script. (Just look at her recent confusion when she tried to ad lib regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – she didn’t know they were already private companies with investors.) Since the GOP Convention, she’s been repeating the same speech provided her by – voila! – a Bush speechwriter! (Change you can believe in – if you’re an idiot.) Of course McCain’s Rovian handlers want to keep Gov. Gaffe-O-Matic from even the nearly-toothless jaws of the American Big Media – imagine the reaction if Independent Voters and others with any scrap of rationality remaining get the hint she’s another bumbling blank slate like the current Dunce Cap in the Oval Office – Disaster! — and there just aren’t enough Christopublican Whack-Jobs and Small-Town Dead-Enders to shoehorn Grandpa and the Beauty Queen into office.

Sure she’s going to have a sit-down with ABC’s Charlie “Capital Gains Tax” Gibson soon, but no doubt she’ll have the questions in advance and there will be a teleprompter off-camera to help her through the answers. Besides, ditzoid Gibson is an in-the-tank Republican fawner – he won’t be tossing any hardball faster than asking her to name her five children in order of birth and how the whirlwind of celebrity has affected her family. Perhaps there will even be a touching video tribute to the joys of snowmobiling featuring hubby Todd and the score from Rocky. Daughter Bristol could then host a fashion show of maternity clothes for high school girls, and Sarah could have her ‘fired’ cook talk Gibson through a diaper change of baby Trig. Political junkies be forewarned: Look out for a tiny flesh-colored earpiece in place during the Biden debate with Steve Schmidt or some other Spawn of the Country Club Jesus feeding her the responses.

– Laugh of the Week: The McCainiacs claiming they won’t make Lady Vain available for open questioning by the BM because US reporters won’t act with the proper ‘respect and deference’ for Alaska’s Beauty Queen Runner-Up. Ha, ha, this is absurd even for Rick Davis – since when did an American politician morph into British royalty? Let’s put on our Rove Smear Cap for a moment: If the Obama camp refused to let Biden be interviewed for the same reason, you just know Karl’s Korps would be endlessly repeating the line: “If he can’t stand up to the media, how’s he going to stand up to Putin?”

– It’s also becoming pretty obvious that we should be calling this the Palin-McCain ticket, as the hapless former Navy Flyboy isn’t the one bringing out the curious crowds on the campaign trail. The wretched McCain just stands there behind her, a blob of aged empty-eyed flesh — occasionally appearing appalled at how low he has sunk, but mostly fidgeting, gaping in senility, and working at maintaining a semblance of a genuine smile. The level of audience interest palpably drops into single-digits when he steps up to speak. It must be galling to McSame that after all these years his fevered presidential aspirations are in the hands of an irritatingly perky nitwit from Alaska and Bush’s Rove-clones who destroyed his presidential campaign in 2000. Wife Cindy must be getting an earful of vicious bile in private.

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September 9, 2008

The Tattlesnake – More GOP Goop: Deaf Con 3 Edition

Random Notes Summing Up the End of Summer Bummer in St. Paul

“Fight with me! Fight with me!”
– John McCain in his acceptance speech at the GOP Con, Sept. 4, 2008, so desperate for combat he invited the audience to throw a punch at him.

The 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, was entertaining and credible if you happen to have that happy zealot’s mindset indistinguishable from serious brain damage, or you’re a member of the Inner Party with a large Memory Hole nearby and a strong stomach. Indeed, George Orwell could have written the script for this GOP Con and you could hear echoes of the boot-heel patriotism of Oceania ringing in its blaring signage and loudly repeated declarations – “Country First!” “Service!” “Character Counts!” “War Hero!” “Reformer!” “Maverick!” “USA!” “Surge Working!” “NO-bama!” — simple themes for simple minds marinated in the bottomless pit of Big Media Infotainment Newspeak and endless wars against shifting enemies, buttressed by increasingly irrational rationales.

Yet never was heard a discouraging word against the Bush Administration and the avaricious corporate-Republican values for which it stands that have promulgated and prolonged the various disasters sinking us on every front – instead, Frank Luntz’s cheesy framing word “Washington” was employed so that the top-of-the-ticket ‘reformers’ had something to ‘change’ other than the guiding precepts of their own party and Sarah Palin’s prominently-displayed infant son. The unasked question that hung over the convention like a cloud from Hurricane Gustav: ‘Yes, Washington is even more corrupt than usual and we are descending into utter catastrophe – and who is responsible for causing all of this misery?’ He That Must Be Obliged But Otherwise Go Unmentioned appeared on the Jumbotron screen early in the evening on the first day, his embarrassing video endorsing McCain stuck into those hours of the evening when, presumably, small-town America was still having dinner and would never see the Bush Boy and think of his Unmentionable PNAC Partner-in-Crime Dick Cheney, the True Author of our rampant economic and global woes.

McCain and Palin both exhibited signs of having an out-of-party experience as they berated the soulless suppurating boils and abscesses populating the Potomac Swamplands in the form of Big Money lobbyists and Special Interests that have brought the country so low, without ever hinting that most of them had an RNC elephant logo on their money clips and the rapacious Jesus of Mammon in their born-again hearts. For that matter, most of the larger fish work in McCain’s own campaign. But perhaps the most comically surreal moment of the three nights came when Mitt Romney, formerly McCain’s dedicated primary foe, erupted from the podium with this public hallucination to the cheers of the damned and deranged:

“We need change, all right. Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington. We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals.”
– Mitt Romney, Sept. 3, 2008.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/08-2

That’s the essence of the snake-eating-its-tail message emerging from St. Paul to unite the party – let’s toss out big-government liberals Bush and Cheney and start anew.

We’re Not Out of Touch – We’re Republicans Without Issues!

“This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”
– Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, quoted by the Washington Post’s The Fix blog.

To the party leaders and McCain’s campaign staff, ignorance is strength, and really the only strength McCain has left. If the public can be allayed by clever rhetoric, bamboozled by slick video bios, befuddled by down-is-up deceptions, or baffled by calculated bluster from determining the bitter truth about the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate for just two months, the GOP believes they can seize the White House for the third time in this new century.

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September 4, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Teach Me Tonight Edition

John McCain Instructs Sarah Palin On the Fine Points of Foreign Policy…

McCAIN: “Okay, now, let’s start with Iraq. What do you know about Iraq?”

PALIN: “Well, I’ve been to Kuwait for a short visit and that’s right next door to Iraq!”

McCAIN: “Is it? Okay, then, you’re an expert on Iraq! Let me give you one tip, though: Don’t let the reporters trip you up on that ‘Shia-Sunni’ stuff. Listen, they’re all the same over there – just a bunch of crazy ragheads peddling carpets.”

PALIN: “Uh, what about those Kurds or whatever I’ve heard about?”

McCAIN: “Ah, curds are something you get in cottage cheese. Don’t bother your pretty little head over that BS; I know I don’t.”

PALIN: “How about Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan?”

McCAIN: “Don’t worry about ‘em. More crazy ragheads and we’ll just blow ‘em off the map if they cause any trouble.”

PALIN: “Well, what else do I need to know?”

McCAIN: “Let’s see, you’ve been to Germany once, so you’ve got Europe knocked, and your plane touched down in Ireland, so that covers the UK, and you know about Russia since you’re right across the water from ‘em – that’s about it except for China and North Korea. Hey, did you see the Olympics on TV?”

PALIN: “Sure.”

McCAIN: “A lot of the people in the audience there were Chinese – you know, like gooks. The North Koreans are the same damn thing. Just watch out for ‘em, is all, ’cause they’re known for being diabolical. I read all about it in those Fu Manchu books when I was a boy. Man, when I become president, I’m gonna send in the Marines and rip that Chink demon Manchu a new one!”

PALIN: “What about all of this stuff in Georgia I hear on the radio, war or whatever? I don’t even know where that place is.”

McCAIN: “It’s just north of Florida. You don’t have to worry about any of that crap – that’s just Cheney trying to start the Cold War again to give us Republicans something to campaign on this year. Sure can’t campaign on the wonderful friggin’ economy can we? Ha, ha!”

PALIN: “So, is there anything else I need to know?”

McCAIN: “Nope. You’re as much of an expert on foreign policy as I am now.”

PALIN: “Wow, I never realized how easy foreign policy really is! Thanks, John!”

McCAIN: “C’mon over here and show Big John how grateful you are.”

PALIN: “I’ll get the Viagra. Do you want me to wear the moosehead again?”

McCAIN: “Oh, yeah, gotta have the moosehead. Heh, heh, heh — you’re gonna make a great Vice President, kiddo!”

August 31, 2008

Rush Gets a Tiny Little Woodie

Filed under: Toon — Tags: , , , , , — Volt @ 10:05 am

August 30, 2008

The Tattlesnake – The Beauty and the Beast, GOP-Style Edition

Or, A McMania Named Desire

“Wonder if he’s going to have her go compete in the ‘Miss Buffalo Chip’ contest?”
– Comment by jfredmuggs at Common Dreams, Aug. 29, 2008.

It was highly entertaining to watch the Pundit Crews on cable news work themselves into a case of the vapors Friday morning, frantically trying to figure out which human sacrifice McCainiac would condemn as his Veep. Some of the Big Media Brains went agog for Tim Pawlenty; others assured the viewers Mitt Romney would probably emerge as The Choice, even while admitting that the hulking shadow of Tom Ridge continued to lurk in the wings. By later in the AM, Pawlenty and Romney were pushed overboard, leaving Ridge or – could it be? — the ‘maverick’ pick of McCain toady Joe Lieberman, still standing.

Yep, even Your Intrepid Tattler thought it would likely be Ridge carrying Johnny Mac’s coat, but that was because, like the Punditocracy, I gave credit to the Old Gluehorse for a residue of sanity, not recognizing McCain is no longer functioning in that psychological state – he’s been driven stone crazy by his own blind ambition to be president, and perhaps a touch of incipient senility. (After all, this is a man who has publicly contradicted himself twice in one day, embraces those who viciously slander him, occasionally goes blank on simple questions, and now opposes most everything he stood for in 2000.)

Seen in that light, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin makes perfect sense. You can imagine the sludgy gears of cynicism turning in McDuffer’s head, or, more likely, one of his Rove-trained staff: “We aren’t exciting the GOP base or doing that well among independents, and that damned Obama just cleaned our clock last night in a speech where he looked like the second coming of JFK – we’ve got to dominate the next news cycle so the Talking Heads don’t have time to praise him, and pick off those millions of Hillary voters we’re convinced will vote for us. What to do, what to do? Hey, how about that gal from Alaska? She’s a good-looker — might sucker in the young studs — and women are so dumb they’ll vote for any female over a young black guy and an old white fart – uh, you know what I mean – any day of the week. Ha, ha, we’ll call her a ‘feminist’ just to confuse ‘em! Plus she’s got that whole conservative family values stuff going on – Jesus, FIVE kids and she’s only 44! — so that can’t hurt. She’s tight with Big Oil, too, another plus, and she’ll do what she’s told, just like Alberto and Harriet. Get that Sarah what’s-her-name up in Alaska on the horn!”

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August 29, 2008

The Tattlesnake – If Obama Keeps This Up, It’s All Over But the Shouting Edition

Dem Convention Closer Fulfills Part of King’s Dream of 45 Years Ago

“Our government should work for us, not against us.” […]
“If John McCain wants have a debate about who has the temperament and judgment to be commander-in-chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.”

– Barack Obama at Invesco Stadium, Aug. 28, 2008.

Regardless of the Usual Big Media Wretches sniffing around for some kind of disunity story, both Bill and Hillary Clinton graciously and unreservedly endorsed Barack Obama with resounding speeches, bringing the Denver convention to its feet. Others like John Kerry, Bill Richardson and Iraq War vet Rep. Patrick Murphy also gave good speeches, but you’d have to watch C-Span to catch them in their entirety since MSNBC and, especially, CNN, preferred to air the rumblings of their own teams of feeble prognosticators and analysts to the words from the podium.

But all of that was the set-up to Thursday night, when Obama appeared before an audience of over 70,000 at Invesco Stadium to formally accept the Democratic nomination for president. The heat was on, and some in the Eternally Damned Pundit Class predicted Obama would blow it with a high-minded ‘professorial’ diatribe that condescended to the average voter as it bored them silly. They were wrong.

Obama laid into a stem-winder, jazzing up the crowd as he proved he’s going to fight McCain by returning fire on some of the Republican’s recent attacks and leaving Cap’n McCain’s Swift Boat dead in the water. Celebrity status? Damn right – the jealous GOP would kill for that kind of popularity. Grecian columns? You’ve got to be kidding. A Nuremberg rally redux hallucination? Peggy Noonan needs to lay off the sauce. Squirrel-bait Jerry Corsi’s crackpot work of fiction? Get a net.

All of the rightie tripe and snipe faded back to the dark pit from whence it came as Obama spelled out point-by-point where he was going to take the country, refuted every McCain negative ad, and then went after Sen. Maverick’s flip-flopping hide. In the clutch, Obama brought his A-game and rolled over the opposition like a Straight-Talk cement mixer.

(Incidentally, in all fairness to John McCain, he did air an ad yesterday cordially congratulating Obama on his historic nomination, although his campaign also attacked Obama on the same day, even after McCain said in his congratulatory ad, “Tomorrow we’ll be back at it, but tonight, senator, job well done.” What is it with this guy?)

Barring any unforeseen and unlikely total meltdown, we just heard the next president of the United States speaking at Invesco Stadium last night.

How can I say that with two months to go until the election? Let’s look at some factoids mixed with obvious observations:

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August 27, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Small Wagers of Sin Edition

I’d bet that …

… At least once during the GOP convention, and likely more often than that, the theme from Rocky will be played to bring a speaker on stage, probably Scooter Libby or Alberto Gonzales.

… Also during the Republican convention, some Big Media dunce – I’m looking at you, Charlie Gibson – will ask Joe Lieberman for a ‘Democrat’s perspective on the GOP convention.’

… Even if Obama delivers the equivalent of the Gettysburg Address on Thursday at Invesco Field, the Punditocracy will determine it wasn’t enough to unify the Democratic Party.

… No one in the Official Washington Press Gaggle will raise an eyebrow over McCain sending his wife Cindy to Georgia to inspect the human suffering there. (Of course, if Obama tried this, there would be a locust-like screeching that it smacks of outrageous presumption.)

… By the end of the week, Michelle Obama’s speech Monday at the Dem convention will be adjudged by the Solons of Pundit Planet as a failure, since it fell short of convincing every Democratic and Independent woman in the Known Universe to vote for Obama.

… Keith Olbermann will finally throttle the life out of MSNBC convention co-host Chris Matthews for the good of his audience and the country, right in the middle of the Hardball host’s braying spittle-flecked recollection of his imaginary tough- teen years on the mean streets of Philadelphia. A jury of his peers will not only acquit KO, but also award him a medal for service in the public interest beyond the call of duty.

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August 23, 2008

MSNBC Says It’s Biden

MSNBC reported early Saturday morning that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has picked Sen. Joseph Biden, 65, to be his vice presidential running mate. There is an Obama rally planned in Springfield, Illinois, this afternoon to officially announce Biden’s addition to the Dem ticket.

Predictably, the half-crazed wingnuts aboard the sinking USS McCain and their allies, the 101st Keyboard Commandos, will be sharpening their pitchforks ready to stick it to the Delaware Senator and erstwhile presidential candidate in any spot that looks tender. Here are the soft places they’ll likely poke with glee:

1. Biden was once called the Senator from DuPont, and for good reason. Joe has been very chummy with the chemical giant, as well as other large corporations from his state, which has no corporate tax. These slings and arrows of outrageous fortune — considering they’re from the wholly-corporatized Republican Party — will be shamelessly slung at Biden for being too close to evil Big Bidness, probably via a strenuous Internet email campaign and multiple postings on some of the more frothing hoof-and-mouth neocon websites like Hind-Acher’s Powerline blog and Freeper Republic.

2. Joe will be endlessly drubbed for appropriating without attribution British Labour Party PM candidate Neil Kinnock’s “born the son of a coal miner, first in the family to attend college” bio that derailed Biden’s presidential run in 1988. That this might have been an innocent mistake won’t cut any mustard with the ravening wolves of the right — “Plagiarist!” “Liar!” will be sprinkled like salt on potato chips all over the right-wing Media Vomitorium, with Michelle Malkin no doubt inferring in a screechy nut-pile smackdown that perhaps Biden really is a liberal Brit, and therefore a foreigner not to be trusted. Next Sean Hannity will demand that Pennsylvania-born Biden produce his birth certificate and, when produced, will ignore it. I can see the Fox News splash now: “Is Joe Biden Really an American Citizen – How Can We Be Sure?”

3. Obama will take a hit for naming Biden since Joe has been in the US Senate for over 30 years, longer than John Sidney McBush III. “Some change you can believe in,” the Tighty-Righties will sneer without embarrassment while in the next paragraph they praise their sealed-in-amber candidate, trying to drag the country back to the Age of the Cold War and a victory in Vietnam – I mean, Iraq.

Also, look for McCainiac ads quoting Biden during the 2008 Dem primary debates wherein he called Obama too inexperienced to be president, and for his ‘yea’ vote on the Iraq invasion. I hope the Obama campaign has some quick short answers ready for these slaps up the side of the head.

Biden’s Good Points:

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August 22, 2008

The Tattlesnake – McCain’s Latest Shameful Four-Play Edition

Double-Deuces This Month — And August Isn’t Over Yet…

1. McCain’s Threadbare Surge Suit, Part Deux: The most recent misinformational sludge oozing its way through the Big Media pipeline is John McCain’s continued insistence that Bush’s build-up of US troops in Baghdad, AKA ‘The Surge,’ worked to quell most of the violence over there. This is more bizarre McCain piffle that any decent journalist could demolish in a few hours of research on the Inner-tubes. The increase in US troop strength focused on Baghdad, not the al-Anbar province and the rest of Iraq. For most of the country, and in neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital city itself, it was millions of dollars in baksheesh bribery to Iraqi warlords, courtesy of the flat-broke American taxpayer, and a tacit agreement among the warring Iraqi factions to keep a low profile for a while, to perhaps lull the Americans into finally leaving, that has resulted in a lessening in violence, much more so than any enhanced US military presence. Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, estimated to be 50 to 100,000 strong, are temporarily dormant, and the tribes of Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province, formerly our most dedicated enemies, have taken US bribes to pursue Al-Qaeda, whom they hate a tad more than the American military. Both factions, however, will not be quelled indefinitely. Now, even the marionettes in the al-Maliki government are asking us to get out within 16 months, per Obama’s withdrawal plan. Since the Iraqis follow the election news in the US very closely and clearly favor an Obama victory in November, here’s an October Surprise for the Republicans – if it appears a month before the election that McCain is likely to win, look for an upsurge in violence in Iraq on such a scale as to make McCain’s fevered “The surge is working!” chant as repugnant and risible as Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner.

2. This is Leadership? There was McCain all over the airwaves last week, delivering a speech per day on the Russia-Georgia dust-up that Putin ungraciously ended with a truce, denying wannabe CinC John-Boy the ability to play the “Russians are coming!” panic card he so obviously salivated over like Flounder in Animal House: “Oh, boy, is this great!” Naturally our leash-trained Punditrocracy and their fellow carnival performers in the BM barked on command to spotlight McCain’s fear-inducing drivel, most of which sounded like it was lifted straight out of some Red Scare pamphlet from the McCarthy Era. For days, I heard all about McCain’s ‘leadership’ for informing us the Russian Bear was back with teeth and claws; of his daily intimate phone chats with Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili; and about how totally awesome it was that he dispatched Tweedle-Dum Joe Lieberman and Tweedle-Dumber Lindsey Graham to illegally conduct US foreign policy overseas without portfolio. Had the vacationing Obama done any of this, he would, of course, have been grimly called to account by the BM for being too presumptuous – the nerve of the guy, pretending to be president when he hasn’t been elected — particularly if he’d attempted, as the arrogant McCain did, to speak for the American people. But one question left unasked in the midst of media praise for the GOP Golden Child — a seasoned military leader who’s never commanded anything that didn’t end in disaster, and a master at foreign affairs who advocated the idiotic Iraq invasion and has supported nearly every Bush catastrophe since – was this: What did all of McCain’s speechifying and posing and dispatching of minions actually accomplish? As far as I can tell, it’s somewhere between zip and zilch. If this is an example of his ‘leadership’ in a crisis, it may be time for the nation to collectively take the gas pipe, should McCain wheedle his way into the presidency.

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August 19, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Corsi for Dummies Edition

Was ‘The Obama Nation’ Author Convicted of Distributing Child Pornography in 2003?

Jerome R. Corsi is the author of “The Obama Nation,” [1] a book that includes what influential columnist Joseph A. Palermo has dubbed an “excrementitious narrative” [2] packed with lies [3] and achieved The New York Times’ bestseller list by suspicious means [4]. Corsi also co-authored, with John E. O’Neill, the equally excremental “Unfit For Command” [5] in 2004, which helped sink decorated Vietnam war hero John Kerry’s bid for the presidency.

Now a reputable news source [6] has reported that Corsi was convicted of peddling child pornography in 2003. “In early 2003, authorities indicate, Corsi was indicted for the distribution of child pornography. …Corsi was handed a lenient sentence that included no prison time.” [7] This is not difficult to believe since those on the Republican right, such as former Congressman Mark Foley, have a consistent inclination towards this sort of vile pornography and the despicable use of underage children for sexual satisfaction [8] and typically receive lenient sentences from Republican judges. [9] It’s undeniable that Corsi has a deviant obsession with, as he puts it, “buggering boys” [10a] and “boy bumpers,” [10b] as evidenced in his past statements.

Is Corsi a Racist?

Corsi has demonstrated his strong affiliation to racist white supremacists, both in the past and recently. [11] It is not hard to imagine that someone of this mindset would agree wholeheartedly with these words of David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, “Obama is a visual aid for white Americans who just don’t get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people.” [12] The idea of a black man as president no doubt has Corsi crawling the walls. [13]

What we are left with is a clear picture of Jerome R. Corsi as a perverted white racist peddler of lies and child porn who would be welcomed by NAMBLA. [14] This is a man, plainly, who is not to be trusted. [15]

(Please make sure you read the footnotes and my final paragraph below the fold.)

Footnotes:

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August 15, 2008

The Tattlesnake — Wolf Woman On the Prowl and Other Howlers Edition

Is There a Full Moon?

– Hawaii Jive-O: Cokie “Larry Talbot” Roberts just can’t get over Barack Obama going on vacation in a – gasp! – “foreign, exotic” locale like Hawaii, where he was born and raised, and where his grandmother still lives. It just “doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” she blathered dementedly on ABC’s This Week last Sunday, even though she reluctantly admitted that she knows “Hawaii is a state” and all, but it seems in Cokie’s World it’s not a real blood-and-guts American state like, say, one-time secessionist Louisiana, her birthplace. (It’s a uniquely dumb angle of attack on Obama, especially considering that the audience for Cokie’s Sunday morning entrail-readings on ABC generally have intact frontal lobes and go on vacation there themselves, and a flip-off even the rest of the Punditocracy apparently thinks is too goofy to echo.)**

Then the very next day on NPR’s Morning Edition, the radio network’s Senior News Analyst “Two Hits” Cokie — part of the Steve and Edie Roberts power couple who no doubt vacation in the blue-collar Indiana Dunes when not busy traversing gossipy Washington cocktail parties, primping for TV appearances, and regurgitating David Broder’s latest conventional wisdom — reiterated her batty babblings regarding the “exotic” and “odd” vacation spot of Hawaii, but omitted her ABC suggestion that Obama instead go to mundane Myrtle Beach, SC, for his down time. Gee, if he had, I wonder what she’d be carping about then? “It’s incredible to me that Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and still has his 85-year-old white grandmother living there, would take this opportunity to politicize even his vacation by going to Myrtle Beach – why, he has no family or connections to that area! Is he ashamed of his white grandmother, afraid it might put off some black voters by reminding them of his mixed racial heritage? He should have visited her in Hawaii – I mean, it is a US state, after all!” And that’s the way the sausage is made these days by our ‘Obama-friendly’ Big Media, folks.

**(Correction: <Today’s New York Times features an article by Michael Falcone that repeats Cokie’s nonsense.)

– They Like Me; They Really Like Me! Check the people surrounding McCain at a real public event, as opposed to those green-screen Berlin beer hall meetings with the obvious party-hack GOPbots cheering as one at his Talking Points and giggling at his lame jokes. I saw a clip just the other day on MSNBC from a factory in Ohio, and the ‘average workers’ standing behind McNasty all looked like they just ate wallpaper paste. The moneybags Republican factory owner, drooling over paying no taxes under the GOP, no doubt ordered his wage slave proles to provide PR window-dressing for Johnny Mac’s eruptions, but they just couldn’t force themselves drag a smile along. ($100 bucks to gas up the beast and losing your home will do that to you.) Reminded me of the facial expressions of real combat troops in Iraq when the loathed Rummy came calling – “You can order me here to greet him, but I don’t have to look like I enjoy it.”

– Unprecedented: Speaking of the military, Jack Cafferty reported on CNN on Aug. 15th that, for the first time in many years, the military is donating more money to the candidate without military experience than the veteran. Obama’s campaign is apparently racking up the bucks from our people in uniform, nearly twice as much as the Republican ‘War Hero.’ Perhaps they’ve realized that the screwy GOP doesn’t know how to fight a war or take care of the troops.

– What does it say about McCain’s integrity that he’s willing to take money from this slick pile of money-humpin’ Christopublican offal? Read on:

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August 13, 2008

The Tattlesnake – ‘Underdog’ McCain’s Rocky Road Edition

Does the Superficial Stupidity Never Cease? CNN reported Aug. 12th that at a McCain rally in Pennsylvania recently, his campaign played the theme from ‘Rocky’ to announce his entrance. Oh, boy. Yep, we know the not-so-subtle subtext: Long-shot working-class white guy crawls into the ring against a snooty, pampered black champ for the Heavyweight title. Has anyone in McCain’s zoo actually seen this film? In the first ‘Rocky,’ the black champ ends up winning the fight after the white guy takes a bloody beating.

Incidentally, where are the Big Media fulminations over the presumptuousness of McCain speaking for “every American” regarding the Russia-Georgia conflict? If that isn’t presumptuous, I don’t know what is.

Praying For Reign: You may have read that James Dobson’s Focus on the Family is trying to stir up a mass prayer asking the Lawd to provide a deluge of rain to drown out Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver, August 28th. Nice folks these far-right Christians.

Aside from the fact that Dobson so far does not support McCain, and has said he could never bring himself to vote for him, what if the weather in Colorado’s largest city is nice that day? Will the wingnut Family Focusers admit that the Almighty isn’t listening to them and prefers Obama for president? Furthermore, will they stop invoking God’s name for the crass political purposes of influencing an election and go pound sand? (Update: The video advocating that Obama’s speech be rained out has been removed from the FF website and the perpetrator is now claiming it was all just a joke.)

August 8, 2008

The Tattlesnake – Sen. Buffalo Chip’s ‘Female Trouble’ Edition

Yet Another Aging Republican Frat Boy Vying for the ‘Ladies Choice’ Award

In the latest installment of John McCain’s bizarre relationship with women, he gleefully offered up his long-suffering wife as a contestant for the X-rated ‘Miss Buffalo Chip’ Beauty Pageant at the Sturgis, SD, Biker Rally, an event which included simulating fellatio on a banana and something called a ‘pickle-licking’ contest, although it’s not clear, according to Josh Marshall at TPM, if that last item is actually part of the beauty pageant or a separate Olympic sport.

McCain, hunched over and reading his speech from a music stand, was caught on videotape grinning and crowing,

“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”
– From CNN, August 5, 2008.

Yes, that line was part of McCain’s script. Gee, the president’s wife AND an Easy Rider ‘sissy seat’ occupant in a string bikini — will wonders never cease in the alternate universe of the McCain campaign? If elected, will Misogyny Mac be president of the US and the Hell’s Angels as well? (The Carpetbagger Report has further details.)

I’ve had friends who were bikers; some of them were good people, and I think Americans should live, dress and act however they choose, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else – but I wouldn’t want any of them in the White House. (And they wouldn’t want to be there either.) The bikers I’ve met roughly demarcate into two groups: the mellow ‘hippies on hogs’ who are generally decent folks who like the freedom of the ‘ride fast’ motorcycle lifestyle, and the angry, violent, usually racist “I’ll kill your ass and piss in your skull” types who live to cause other people grief. The latter were the crazies who murdered that black guy at the Rolling Stones’ Altamont concert in 1969 and I’d bet a sidecar stuffed with sawbucks that those were the same types who were revving their engines while McCain spoke.

At any rate, you might think this would be one of those “Aha, here’s the politician’s true character laid bare” moments the Big Media likes to spring on Dems, from Hillary’s laugh to Obama ordering orange juice instead of coffee at a diner, but, except for Keith Olbermann and Dan Abrams on MSNBC, it was hardly mentioned save for a few male pundits who, chuckling indulgently, dismissed it as more of McCain’s ‘maverick’ sensibility joined with his ‘fighter jock mentality.’ Yep, that’s just what we need in the next president – a guy mired in the frat boy sexism of the mid-20th century to lead us in the 21st.

Earlier this year there was some baseless bantering by the Punditocracy that Obama might have some ‘problem’ with women, but these same Below-the-Beltway talkers are silent on McCain’s manifest disrespect for those who don’t happen to be male. McCain’s degrading relationships with women have a long history, as Kate Sheppard delineates in “McSexist: McCain’s War on Women,” (In These Times, July 24, 2008):

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