I Don't Like You Either

Joe the Plumber: Too Far Right for Fox?

We missed this, so here it is now:  Shep Smith of Fox News gives Joe the Plumber the big eye roll.

The Joe the No Show Haiku Project

by Damozel | Okay, everyone's read about Joe the No Show and has seen this:

But we  thought Ambinder's poetic tribute was a whole ship full of awesome, and maybe you didn't see that:

"Joe's with us today,"
Joe. Where are ya? Where is Joe?
Is Joe here with us?

Sadly, he has now been called out by Progressive Accountability---rightly---for calling it a haiku when it is NOT a haiku. 

CLAIM - Marc Ambinder Claims He Has Written a Haiku

FACT - A Haiku is 5-7-5, Ambinder dangerously misleads the American people by writing a "Haiku" that is 6-7-5.

Statement - "With only five days until the election this misuse of Japanese poetry could unravel the very fabric of American democracy.  We immediately demand that the first line be amended to "Joe's with us today" to comply with the use of syllables that the American people deserve and expect from The Atlantic."

I suggest these changes:

Joe?  Where did you go? today....
Joe. Where are ya? Where is Joe?
Is Joe here with us?

I think this is even more plangent than the original.

Another Awesome Campaign Ad: "Whassup"

Gawker:

Remember those Budweiser "Whasssssssssupppppppppppp!!!" ads, that made you want to crush and kill everyone in your path? Yes, well someone has put the idea to use for the sake of good.

Needful Diversions: In these Stressful Times, Please Enjoy this Video of a Baby Beluga Getting a Tongue Rub from the Trainer

Via Cute Overload.

McCain is Getting Tired (Two Embarrassing-in-Two-Entirely-Different-Ways Misfires)

When my mom does it, she calls it "having a senior moment."  Er, not that she's ever slipped up and said this:

Ladies in Red: Bachmann & Palin Both in Trouble?

by Blue Stockings | First, check out Bill Maher's dis:

Then check out these reports of current woes:

Palin Still Thinks that the Vice President is in Charge of the Senate

by Blue Stockings | DDay: "Sarah Palin, proving that even local interviewers can make her look bad."

Christ, couldn't someone have taken her gently aside and read the Constitution to her by this time?  Though I get the impression that with Palin, it wouldn't help much:  facts that aren't compatible with her preconceptions probably slip right out of her consciousness again...or such is my preconception.  As Senate majority leader Harry Reid told Think Progress, this is the second time she's said it.  "While the Vice President presides over the Senate, he or she is not in charge of it,"  he amplified.  (Think Progress)

Civics is hard!

Yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sat for an interview with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. In response to a question sent to the network by a third grader at a local elementary school about what the Vice President does, Palin erroneously argued that the Vice President is “in charge of the United States Senate“:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. (Think Progress; emphasis in original)

Hilarious.  Obviously, Palin didn't give Piper a chance to explain it. 

Conservative Mayor of London Endorses Obama

by The Puppet Mistress | Boris Johnson, the conservative Mayor of London, has come out in support of Barack Obama in a Tory newspaper and his ingenuous arguments in support are a treat.  Has anyone told Limbaugh?

He starts off with a Wildean crack at W, though the follow-through is a bit weak:

Sarah Palin and the Wingnuts: "Proud to be Dumb & Easily Cowed"

by Blue Stockings | Ken Layne at Wonkette noticed  patrician right-wing princess Peggy Noonan's post arguing that McCain won the debate also spent several paragraphs arguing that Sarah Palin is as dumb as a brick.  (He doesn't disagree with the part about Palin.)   Noonan may be right wing, but she's also "an east coast" elitist.  So hilarious that Republicans and Republican shills accuse liberals of elitism.....

David Frum Takes on Rachel Maddow; Has His Arse Handed to Him

by Teh Nutroots | ....and doesn't even know it.  This is, of course, the man who gave the world "the axis of evil" and who feels that The Colbert Report isn't "serious" enough.  Of course, only a self-important humorless git could have said this about his career as a speech-writer for Bush:

"I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything." (truthout)

Seriously, watch this:

Former Python John Cleese: Michael is No Longer the Funniest Palin

by Nicholas | 

Bonus Pythonage below, for those who wish to learn or reminisce:

Even Republicans are Startled by the Hardcore Base; McCain Trying to Douse the Flames

by Blue Stockings | The ones who don't go on the internet really may not know their own.  Quite a lot of voters simply dismiss the "Obama is, or at some time, may have been associating with a known terrorist" [now a university professor] attack ads.   A Fox poll says 2/3 of voters say that the Ayers business makes no difference to their votes.

Just to hammer home the point, though, there’s one more poll that McCain should really take a look at. It says that two thirds of voters just don’t care about the Ayers story, and it’s not influencing their vote.  The remaining third are Republicans who wouldn’t vote for Obama anyway.  The poll was put out by Fox News.

I can’t think of any other way to get the point through McCain’s head; people could care less, they want to hear talk on the economy!  (Comments from Left Field)

It's what I'll call, because I'm an elitist, the lower third---the hard 'n crazy core---who are scaring sane people, including Republicans.  Among the lower third, the level of rage is getting scary. 

Videos taken of people heading into McCain-Palin rallies have shown individuals who label Barack Obama as a terrorist, a communist and a threat to the well-being of the country. At a town hall meeting in Wisconsin on Thursday, several attendees urged the Republican nominee to attack his opponent on the Ayers issue and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who McCain himself has said should be off limits.

The rabid nature of the scene has startled longtime political observers and even former associates of McCain himself. (Sam Stein)

McCain Calls Obama "That One"

Via Ambinder. As opposed, I guess, to "the One"?  But DAMN, that was obnoxious.

Letterman Won't Let Up: Messages from Sarah Palin; Palin Recaps Herself

thanks, Wonkette....

Gwen Ifill: "Palin Blew Me Off" in Veep Debate

by Nicholas | We all noticed it, of course. Ifill---who was preemptively accused by the desperate, increasingly shrill far right contingent of being too partisan to moderate fairly---withheld comment and even any hint of an eye-roll when Palin ignored the questions and stuck to her script.  I was personally offended that Ifill never really called her on this, even while understanding the reason.

But now, on Meet the Press, Ifill had this to say (via Think Progress):

McCain's Slow Burn During an Interview....PLUS "The Angry John McCain Song"!

by Teh Nutroots | McCain vs. the editorial board at The Des Moines Register [h/t M. Ambinder] 

"Big Spending John McCain"

by Blue Stockings |  Heh.  Nice one, Obama campaign.

At The Atlantic, the all too detached and sensible Marc Ambinder commented dryly:

A Democratic candidate on a Republican candidate for spending? 

Especially a Democratic candidate who, let's face, has a bunch of expensive spending proposals he's not willing to give up, even in the face of mounting deficits.....

Kind of an eye-gouge, right?

And says it like it's a bad thing....

Obama in Greensboro, NC

by The Puppet Mistress | Via Pam Spaulding at Pam's House Blend, this:

And this:

Obama gave his reaction to Friday's debate with John McCain, a man incapable of looking at the Democratic nominee in the eye.

"John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he had nothing to say about you" (Pam Spaulding)

She has the transcript of the speech and all.

Bonus at The Blend:  Footage of Fundamentalists defying Jesus (who said "judge not lest you be judged" and a lot of good things about taking the plank out of your own eye before you worry about the dust speck in your brother's) by waving signs saying YOU DESERVE HELL at the NC Pride Parade.  That's nothing at all to do with Jesus, or anything that he said or did, and everything to do with the sort of hatred and bigotry he opposed.

More Palinisation: The Second Part of Her Interview

by Nicholas |  I covered the first part here.  Here's more.  And, as Glenn Greenwald noted earlier today, it's really rather sad.

Via Ambinder, this partial transcript:

Needful Diversions----"Glory" from Pippin: A Tribute to War

Blue Stockings | This is Ben Vereen doing it Fosse-style in a celebration of war (from the seventies musical "Pippin.")   I loves me some Ben Vereen. Charlemagne, you lead us on to power!   

This one goes out to McCain, Palin, Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonazalez, and all neocons wherever they are.. 

Palin Anointed to Protect Her from Witchcraft?

by The Puppet Mistress | Okay.  Maybe the video below reflects beliefs that are   a little weirder than those held by, say, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush,  Andrew Sullivan---or for that matter, me.  I mean, don't all religious practices and beliefs look a little strange from outside?  It's so hard to judge.

Or, um, not. 

Project "Make McCain Exciting": Blue Suede Shoes

Ride the Wayback Pony: The George W Bush Singers Sing "The State of the Union"

Inspirational!  From "Songs in the Key of W"

Project "Make McCain Exciting": McCain of the Lost Ark

Project "Make McCain Exciting": Wizard of Oz Edition

Vignette from Your Worst Nightmares: Palin Flips the Ticket

Via Huffpost:

And just a few short weeks ago, she wasn't even sure what it is a Vice President does.  Watch yer back, John McCain....

Ride the Wayback Pony! Joe Scarborough to Rachel Maddow in March 2008: "It's Not the Economy, Stupid!"

Videocafeblog describes it thus:

Joe Scarborough tries to put some lipstick on the pig that is the Bush economy, and Rachel Maddow tries to interject some sanity into the conversation, and when she brings up the radical economic policies of the Bush administation that have brought us to where we are now, she gets talked over and cut off.

ABC Goes for McCain on Economic Flip-Flop: "A Conversion of Convenience"

Wow.  What Nicole Belle says.

Dude, you’re losing ABC…that’s like FOX-lite.  That’s not going to keep the base motivated.

When even McCain’s Media points out that the Straight Talk Express has derailed, you know you have some problems.(Nicole Belle, C&L)

h/t to C& L for the vid and the transcript:

Here's my favorite part:

McCain Campaign "Sacrificial Spokesman" Tucker Bounds Again Raked Over the Coals for Campaign Lies

by Teh Nutroots |  From Ryan Tate at Gawker:

Congratulations to the John McCain campaign, which has now officially been told off on all three big cable news networks...Remember when CNN did this to Bounds, so McCain cancelled a Larry King interview in a snit? Guess that won't work anymore. Bounds has become a human piñata like Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan before him, as the media hold him responsible for the crimes of his boss, who they can't get at. It's awesome to see, but still all too rare — on all the networks. (More).

Needful Diversions: The Mean Kitty Song

Because after the horror of aerial hunting, I needed to see this again: