PUMA Petulance

Can these individuals really be Democrats? Hint: Search "PUMA" on YouTube (or most anywhere else for that matter -- their websites are a real hoot). After you recover your balance and your appetite, ask yourself just how likely it is that more than a tiny fraction of these people are what they claim to be.





At least a few members of the media have noticed how absurd these shills are, and how threadbare are their stated positions. Seems to me those signing up to play the traditional Republican games of distraction from a corrupt and destructive platform are even more transparent than usual?

Then again, I have a habit of voting for lost causes. Something tells me, though, this time at least will be different.

More on community organizing

Hope this works. When I paged through to YouTube the video looked like it might have been nuked.

Obama responds on community organizing

I'm very happy now. Before the Republican convention and the unveiling of their assault momma, Sarah Palin, electoral vote predictions narrowly favored Obama. Lastest look shows this:



301 to 224. That's some post-convention "bounce" for the blingtard right.

And here's Obama yesterday, gently confused about the "significance" of one of Palin's biggest applause lines. The man knows how to deal with medium cool.




It's still too early to declare the election over, but one can hope.

Don't Worry About the Government

We'll tell you all you need to know about our candidates. No need for messy middlemen of the press.



This story is simply astounding. That's right, the Republican Party actually wants you to believe that their Vice Presidential candidate deserves the sort of special protection that will keep her out of uncontrolled speaking engagements and serious Q&A sessions from now until November. I guess this is why candidates typically put off announcing a running mate for as long as they can?

Is it merely coincidence, I wonder, that McCain spokesmodel, Nicole Wallace, shares names with a fictional character described as follows?

"A sociopathic con artist, thief, and serial killer, Wallace has 20 known murders to her name by the Season 7 episode, "Frame". She has the chameleon-like ability to reinvent herself after each crime, going from her refined, intellectual lifestyle as a university professor to that of a charming wife of a wealthy man, then to a shacking up in a cheap apartment with a female lover, and later as a surrogate wife and mother to a broken family." (Wikipedia's summary of Nicole Wallace's career -- not the Republican spokesmodel... or IS she?)

Seriously, though, Wallace's comments in this clip seem to give the last bit of "proof" I needed to conclude that Republican's are floating all the various pregnancy and adultery stories mainly as a way to distract attention from Palin's lack of qualifications, and take away attention from her fringe beliefs, her extra-legal approach so far, as demonstrated by her acts as an executive officer -- the shit-canning of a state police official who would not rubber-stamp her efforts to go vindictive on her ex-brother-in-law's case, and other shady deals sure to come to light from now until November (or for the next 4 years in the unlikely event this ticket manages to take the White House).

More background on the real-life Nicole Wallace -- her slug line in this interview is "McCain Senior Adviser Nicolle Wallace, a former CBS News analyst and communications director to President Bush".

One wonders given her spin mistress act in the video up top, was Wallace a strategist in suggesting how to use Palin's personal embarrassments and other irrelevant facts and rumors as tactical weapon in delaying and deflecting most substantive issues to the sidebars where the Republican's hope that anyone voting on likeability and other irrelevancies would scarcely care to venture?

Shockingly Bad Speech

Here's an evaluation of the John McCain convention speech from Jeffery Toobin, on CNN.



Jeffery Toobin is a CNN legal analyst, writer for The New Yorker and former federal prosecutor.

Raising (Mc)Cain

I'm surely not the only person to think, while hearing McCain's convention acceptance speech that all this talk about "stand up and fight" stood in stark contrast to the facts of McCain's wartime service.

I feel sympathy for the man's pain, but let's face it. His claim to fame is based in large part on being a prisoner.

And it seemed to me that, during this speech he again looked like a prisoner.

Check out this excerpt on the BBC site to see whether you agree or disagree.

This time though, he appears to be the prisoner of the right wing fringe elements that have largely taken control of the Republican party, especially in these "last days" when moderate Republicans seem to be largely unenthusiastic about his candidacy.

I suppose this was inevitable, given how split Republican kingmakers were about his candidacy in the first place.

For some other perspectives please follow the links to one of my favorite Kos entries of the moment.

Thoughts on Vice

Vice Presidents, that is.

The sad truth that political pollsters and campaign managers know all too well, is that the average voter doesn't have time to sort out facts, positions or the other "boring" details that may most predict what an elected official does once elected.

Right now the focus of political junkies seems to be on Sarah Palin's lack of qualifications, and next on her not-too-hard to decipher political positions. Again the political junkies who support Democrats (many of them while trying to hold down lunch as they elect the lesser of two evils) seem to be forgetting the recent history of vice presidential nominees. Perhaps this is because Cheney, the current schmo, is an exception that seems to prove the rule.

What's worse that an empty suit or vacant (or would that be vacuous?) tailored suitdress as V.P.? Maybe it's a Vice President who is the Acting President.


Besides Cheney, what do we have by way of former V.P.s? Well, there is Daddy Bush, but again, he was something of an exception. Then we have Agnew, and Quayle. Each of them long-running punchlines that reassured the general public that the person in the office of vice president really didn't mean that much, all things considered.

Palin is very much cut in the cloth of the "punchline" Vice President. The problem being that with both Nixon and Bush Daddy, there was relatively little concern that the rigors of office would kill or incapacitate either candidate.

In the case of Nixon, I think many of us who remember him found it hard to imagine he would give up the post even if pronounced dead.