He'll whip that one's you-know-what

COMMUNIST COUNTRY, Va. (AP) -- Republican John McCain vowed Sunday to "whip" Democratic rival Barack Obama's "you-know-what" when the two presidential candidates meet Wednesday in their final televised debate.

McCain made that pledge as top advisers said he is weighing new economic proposals to help the nation weather the financial crisis. The Arizona senator refused to answer a reporter's question Sunday about what plans he might be considering.

and now a word from off the LoC

briggs: he wants to put off the debate
chill: because of the economic crises?
briggs: "yes."
chill: is he the chairman of the fed now or something?
briggs: well he's going to be president in four months
chill: maybe Sarah has been to a bank in Alaska before and can solve the whole thing herself
briggs: lol

Morning in America (cont'd)

An overwhelming majority of National Journal's Republican Political Insiders were eager for much of the GOP convention to be spent attacking the Democrats.

Asked how much of the Republican convention's program should be "devoted to tearing down Barack Obama and the Democratic brand," 55 percent of Insiders said "about half" and 16 percent said "more than half"
. . .

Another remarked, "There's no rebuilding the GOP™ brand between now and Election Day. We need to bring [Democrats] down to our level."

so good it's worth another look

Weather Channel boss calls global warming 'the greatest scam in history

"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM..."

"Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in [sic] allusion [sic] of rapid global warming." (MORANS! Ed.)

"Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

"Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

"Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California (ruh-roh -- ix-nay on the ash-baying of the overnator-gay... Ed.), school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious (sic - yes this is English) citizens.

"I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct.

"There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril." (Yay! Ed.)

HOLY PHOKKING S#I+ WE'RE SO PHOKKED (CONT'D)

News item: McCain unsure how many houses he owns

Not an elitist like Hussein over there though.

His maverickyness is what I like best

Check out his afro.

When I pointed out that the Rocchios' job titles seemed to jar a bit with the size of their donations, Ms. Rocchio said that no one could guess the real income levels of other people.

When a New York Times reporter contacted the owner of a discount stereo store who gave $9,200 with his wife to help elect McCain, here's what happened:

"He's like a worse copy than Bush," Mr. Makhlouf said of Mr. McCain. When a reporter initially contacted Mr. Makhlouf, he denied giving to the McCain campaign. After eventually admitting to the donation, Mr. Makhlouf added, "I'm still not going to vote for him."

"My friends, I forgot to put on my pants this morning..."

"I know how to win wars."
John McCain, January 2007

"I am very certain that this military engagement will not be very difficult."
John McCain, September 12, 2002.

"Look, we're going to send young men and women in harm's way and that's always a great danger, but I cannot believe that there is an Iraqi soldier who is going to be willing to die for Saddam Hussein, particularly since he will know that our objective is to remove Saddam Hussein from power."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

"But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

"He's a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart."
John McCain, on Ahmed Chalabi, 2003.

nothing that a little more folksy humor can't fix, or, poll results scientific (but funny)

News item: Obama backers more excited than McCain's, poll finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — John McCain is facing an excitement deficit.

While overall interest in the presidential campaign has swelled since last fall, backers of Barack Obama are more fired up and express more loyalty to their candidate than McCain's do, a poll by The Associated Press and Yahoo News showed Friday. In addition, individual groups backing Obama — African-Americans, Democrats and liberals — are more enthusiastic than whites, Republicans and conservatives, who are more aligned with McCain, the GOP senator from Arizona.

Rachel Maddow: "librarians are trained democracy superheroes"

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"Help us defend Carol Kreck"
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architect who designed NU library dies of confusion

Walter A. Netsch Jr., the maverick, strong-willed Chicago architect whose geometrically complex buildings, including the University of Illinois at Chicago campus and the U.S. Air Force Academy chapel in Colorado, departed from glass-box orthodoxy and both delighted and frustrated their users, died Sunday at his home in Chicago.

we don't want nobody nobody sent (cont'd), or, since when is the Wall Street Journal wid da tarrists?

Mister Maverick, Meet Da Machine
By THOMAS FRANK

...True, there is a clique of professors in Hyde Park who are "alien" to working-class interests, as I know from having lived there for 15 years. Those professors are conservatives, however: members of the University of Chicago's law and economics departments who have given that institution much of its world-wide fame.

Their hostility to the working class is not to be doubted. They have dreamed up ways to get the New Deal ruled unconstitutional. They have railed against labor unions and higher minimum wages while cheering lustily for Nafta and grotesque pay inequality. At this very moment, in that diabolical neighborhood of Hyde Park, the university is setting up a lavishly funded Milton Friedman Institute in order to better worship the greatest free-market evangelist of them all. (Fittingly, it will occupy what used to be the Chicago Theological Seminary.)

But these professors get a pass when Hyde Park's "academic world" comes under fire. These are intellectuals conservatives love; indeed, if the GOP ever was the "party of ideas," as many insist, those ideas pretty much came from Hyde Park.

What the culture warriors mean is something much cruder: that the neighborhood of Hyde Park (1) harbors a lot of academic types and (2) has a very liberal political tradition. Stereotype, meet cliché: Professors plus liberalism equals "elitism."

Maybe it will work. But first our Republican friends should know something about the company they are keeping as they line up with the neighborhood's detractors.

The distinguishing characteristic of Hyde Park's political history – the feature that sets it apart from every other neighborhood in the city – is its longstanding defiance of the Chicago machine.

Over the years, the neighborhood stubbornly insisted on sending a series of independents and clean-government types to be its representatives in Congress and on the City Council. They have included alderman Leon Despres, who fought the machine for years; mayor Harold Washington, who finally beat the machine; and Sen. Paul Douglas, whose endless battles against corruption won him the appellation – yes – "maverick."

The machine hated them right back. It gerrymandered Hyde Park to dilute the neighborhood's vote; it routinely shut off Mr. Despres's microphone when he spoke in the City Council. Abner Mikva, whom Hyde Park sent to Congress in the 1970s (he is now an informal adviser to Mr. Obama), later wrote of his own introduction to the Chicago machine when he tried to volunteer in 1948:

"'Who sent you?' the committeeman said. I said, 'Nobody.' He said, 'We don't want nobody nobody sent. . . . Where are you from, anyway?' I said, 'University of Chicago.' He said, 'We don't want nobody from the University of Chicago in this organization.'"

And now, 60 years later, comes John McCain to embrace the same noble sentiment. Apparently he has seen a glimmer of promise in that stale hate and is ready to pick up where the machine left off. Some maverick.

Then again, why shouldn't he? His party embodies the motto of Chicago politics – "Where's mine?" – even better than the machine's patronage army did 50 years ago.

Wanting to be sure, I contacted the McCain campaign with an email query addressed to two officers, which unfortunately bounced back. But I also emailed Mark Salter, the candidate's right-hand man. Mr. Salter replied in under a minute, both to the others I had addressed and, considerately, to me as well: "Do not respond," he ordered.

But I will respond anyway. Here is my advice to Mr. Salter, as he travels about burnishing his boss's image as a "maverick" who is unafraid to talk to the press. If you're going to drum up some Chicago-style hate, you need to learn some authentic Chicagoese. Next time you brush off a reporter, do it right. Repeat after me: "We don't want nobody nobody sent."

the s#i+ keeps getting funnier (and scarier)

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