Hope this isn't a pain, and I know many of you probably already signed this, but there is one last, serious effort underway to stop the Bush Library and Think Tank from coming to fruition.  We really could stop it.  There is a plan.

http://protectsmu.org/index.html

I went to SMU, and it's a great school.  But it's run by people eager to railroad this horrible idea into reality.  So, do it out of spite if you must, or whatever, but please sign the petition and help us stop this.

http://protectsmu.org/index.html

For those who don't know, this isn't any regular Presidential Library.  Rove and Co. have attached a right-wing think tank to the facility that will work to actively rewrite the history of the Iraq War and the Bush Presidency.  It will push for and build a neo-con agenda for generations to come, under the guise of a respectability.  These are its objectives.  And yes, it's that bad.

So, sorry to bug ya with a petition.  I know it's a drag to dwell on Bush when there's so much to look forward to.

Thanks...

Yesterday, McCain came out hard for off-shore drilling.  Later in the day, so did Bush.

What the hell?

Didn't Bush get the memo?  McCain is trying to distance himself.  They can share other things!  National security, social security, Cheney. 

How and why did this happen?

This is a really interesting problem, and one that is going to define this election.  Here's my theory.  I think that they're playing for the same thing, Bush and McCain.  Each of them is trying to find new ground they can stand on that will be solid.  McCain would like it to be ground Bush hasn't soiled.  Well, so would Bush.  So, when they stumble across polls like the ones that just came out in favor of off-shore drilling, how does the one desperate for a personal legacy just cede that opportunity to the new kid?  Well, he doesn't.  And so if McCain trots out a plan, or floats an idea, and it doesn't sink, we can expect Bush is going to want a piece of that action.  And in doing so, turn McCain's "fresh thinking" into a party line.

If McCain hopes to create separation, he will have to find issues that Bush will never and can never support to call his own.  Those are going to be hard to find.

Today's poll finds Obama slaughtering John McCain by a 46%-42%
margin, with a ±2% margin of error. A week ago, Obama was suffering from a devastating 45%-42% lead that led to rumors he might withdraw from the race completely.

On the other hand, Rasmussen has not shown any such decline, nor any such rebound, with Obama's lead remaining boring.  So, whatever.

Sources inside Gallup have stated anonymously that these numbers will continue to be released and will continue to  fluctuate, sometimes by two or three points at a time.  And yes, they say, this will be reason for panic.

So it's interesting that McCain's defense of this latest gaffe is that the media is only stating a portion of the quote.  Similarly, the other day, his campaign took umbrage with the use of brackets, or rather, they fixed on the brackets as an opportunity to say that the quote was misconstruing their meaning.  We have then, a clear modus operandi.  The McCain camp plans to pursue this tactic going forward, which is to say that common journalistic practices (brackets, ellipses, partial sentence quotes) misconstrue "meaning."

This is, of course, playing off the idea that the media is not to be trusted, that they favor Obama, that they are, oh god no don't say it...liberal!

And here's the rub.  McCain is "not" part of the great right wing conspiracy.  (We'll all know he's joined their ranks, but he is hoping to portray himself as if he hasn't.)  But he has built much of his reputation with the media by not treating them as, say, Rove does.  As the enemy.  He's made a lot of friends this way.  So how will these friends respond to this tactic.  To the implication that, in doing their job (trying to represent a person's intentions while providing a complete sentence the person didn't say), they are, in fact, not doing their job (misrepresenting the intention, or worse, purposefully obscuring it).

I worry that many journalists in the coming months will feel the need to balance the scales between one very good candidate and one very bad one.  And that, in their attempt to do this, they will allow McCain to weasel out of a lot of bad moves.  This is problematic for a million reasons.  There are not two sides to every issue,  nor are there always two valid points of view.  But most of the media-- out of fear of being called partisan (except for Foxnews which is proud of it)--believe there is, or at least report as if there is.  In short, I look for them to handicap the race.

And so I wonder if, in an effort to aid the McCain campaign, these journalists will allow McCain to play this quotation game, even though the real victims of that deception is them.

I don't know how or why it happened.  Not two days ago I was marveling at the Hillary conundrum.  That Obama could unite the party with the pick, but in doing so, would compromise his new Washington message and piss supporters like me off royally.  Plus there's the whole Bill Clinton as VP thing and a dozen other solid reasons that this is a bad idea.

But there I was last night, making dinner, and suddenly it hit me, and not even that hard, that I didn't care.  Me, the biggest Obama shill I know, buying his whole message hook, line and sinker.  But it's true.  I don't care.  I'm not sure why, but I don't.  In fact:

Hillary would be a good VP.  Now, this is assuming she's totally on board and not aiming to undermine his campaign, then she's got a lot to offer.  She'll a mad-dog campaigner.  She brings with her a ton of voters, and hell, she has been pretty bi-partisan since becoming a Senator (though often, in bad ways).

More importantly, Hillary as VP doesn't bother me.  I mean, I would rather her in the VP than the cabinet.  Hands down.  That's a no-brainer to me.  I know we have this whole new VP idea nowadays, but that's a role that the president orchestrates, and if President Obama doesn't want her out front (and on many issues he wouldn't), then he'll tell her to go home.  Easy as that.  Happens to VP's all the time.

So then, what about her war vote, her lobbyist ties, her husband?  I do worry about the possible October surprise of Bills recent womanizing that could undermine the ticket...but other than that, I don't care.  It's VP, and I'm not voting for the VP.  I don't expect the President to die and if that awful thing happened, then his legacy will be defined in part by the initiatives he was pushing for.  The VP will not come in and just start a wholesale new direction or something.  I mean, we don't hold Kennedy responsible for Johnson's failures nearly as much as we honor Kennedy through Johnson's successes.

And, who better to truly introduce Obama to the scared white vote (WV, Kentucky, Penn), than someone who has stoked the fires of those fears?  He'd be like her token black friend, and therefore, he'd be "okay."  We've all met people who think like this, and Hillary of late has engendered herself to them.  She's on the inside.   So then, put her in at VP and if a quarter of the bigots out there mustered up the nerve to check an Obama ticket, you gotta think that's an amazing thing.

So there it is.  Hillary for VP.  Lots of upside, and as of last night, the downside just doesn't bother me.  And although I'm fairly (completely) certain Obama could win without her, a landslide victory would do wonders for the sort of big ideas Obama wants to get off the ground.  Plus, all my disaffected Republican friends voting for Obama could stomach it I think.  We all understand the necessity of political expediency.

(One last thought: I reserve the right to completely change my mind.  Anticipating people like Billy Glad's possible response to this post already has me thinking I might.)

In the town hall this morning, one of two things happened, and each seems troubling.

1) Hillary and George attended those Anti-NAFTA meetings together.  Which begs the question:  If this is true, why hasn't George mentioned it before?  Doing so would've answered a lot of questions, something journalists usually desire to do.

2) They didn't attend them together.  In this contingency, Hillary is betting that George won't challenge her.  If that's the case, she was right and George should turn in his press card. 

I'm not sure which one it is, but either one continues to prove that George is incapable of managing a proper role in this election, and calls into question how much journalistic integrity he has to begin with.

So as many of you probably did, I saw Gingrich on John Stewart last night slopping around like a pig in Wright and then, of course, Ayers.

And though Stewart's audience is smarter than most of Gingrich's mistresses, he felt the need to mention that Ayers is a "terrorist."

Now, we all know there's no link worth talking about here, even Hillary supporters (generally bringing it up to point out that the Republicans will--a convenient truth), and we know that the reason that the word "terrorist" is so important because, in this country, when we think terrorist, we think...duh duh....brown.

So seeing that the Republicans are going to play six degrees of separation, I've decided to play too.  Because I'm tired of the Dem race, I'm looking to McCain.

I'm hoping you will too.  Our candidate will probably not stoop to such insinuations, but I will, and you can too.  McCain's buddies sure are.

So my first find of the morning is that McCain's great-great grandfather owned 52 slaves.  A different one for every week, I guess.  Did Great Grandfather McCain inherit them?  I don't know.  I'm just getting started.

So there you go.  Grandpa McSame: 52 slaves

Do with that what you will.

(On a side note, I got this info from Wikipedia, which is generally not to be very trusted, but I'm less concerned with accuracy than with innuendo.  Obama would not approve.  Oh well.)

So here's the thing.  Hillary needs to win all states by, what, 75 or 80%?  How's she doing?  I know everyone wants to cite this poll, they're tied, this poll, she's ahead by 2, he's ahead by eight.

Whatever.  When you can show me the polls that put her ahead of Obama with 75% of the vote in NC or Indiana, then we're talking. 

Right now, all she's proving that she was always the better positioned to run for President, the most well-known and therefore, the clear favorite.  And that this is why Obama was once the underdog by twenty-five points nationally.  A perfect storm--her horrible campaign (Penn and co.) and Obama's brilliant 50 state strategy--lead us to this point.  Unfortunately, you can't redo February and that's all the difference.  

Obama is 288 delegates from the nomination.  All the polls in America can't change that.

But the voters can.  And if they can overturn the will of the pledged delegates in place by voting in devastating numbers for Hillary, then she'll be the nominee.

Until then, the only poll that matters to me is people I know who support Obama, and that's at about 80% easy.

I'm working on the other twenty.

So Huffpo is reporting that Mrs. Edwards is firmly in Clinton camp and trying to convince John.  My instinct is that he will endorse Hillary, because I think he is a careerist first, and a person, second, and Hillary will promise him positions Obama will not.  (The careerist thing isn't the put-down that it sounds like.  It's true of all politicians and trial lawyers.)

Given the most Edwards fundraisers and supporters are now backing Obama, and that John was running primarily against Hillary, does it stand to reason, by Clinton logic that...

Elizabeth=Judas?

Or maybe she's Thomas then, since Obama's failure to kiss their one-term ring sent them into this doubting tailspin?

Or how about Pontius Pilate, washing her hands of Obama?

Join me next week for more "absurd metaphors and the endorsements that spawn them."

She said this in a speech today and it occurred to me that, should we take her at her word, that nullifies her Health Care argument.

Well?

This was brutal, but it ended exactly where (most) everyone knew it would.  It was long, and annoying, and I am so happy to wake up this morning with it behind us.

So good morning, folks.  It's a good day to be an Obama supporter.  The PA danger was averted, and things are right where we left them.  With a lead in delegates, popular vote, and states.

Thank God it's over, though.  I don't know how much more I could take.

Delegates no longer count.

Popular Vote no longer counts.

States no longer count.

Tie then goes to the leader going in.

Congratulation Obama!

Actually, I think the stage got set during the debate.  But this weekend, I was watching the talking heads as I do every Sunday, talking about who is or isn't "bitter," who is or isn't "patriotic," whether Michelle Obama is more like Abigail Adams or Mrs. John Kerry...

I was at the gym on the treadmill, so you can see all of it at once on separate TV's.  But there are other things on too.  Rock of Love, MadTV, Yankee replay, church!, the movie Major League.

And I realized, out of nowhere really, that I didn't want to watch these people talk about this stuff.  More than that, I couldn't.  That it would be wrong.  It suddenly occurred to me that my watching these old farts talk about our country and this important election as if it were a race they had no dog in, it occurred to me that this is exactly what Obama's been imploring me not to do.  It's precisely what this whole "change" is about.  It's about the way I think, and how I behave.  It's about me.

Because these pundits, these programs, they're so stuck in the old-think, the Right v. Left, Tax Cuts v. Big Government bullsh#t that we all know isn't even true or real or valuable, but they're so invested in the state of politics as they see it, that they cannot imagine the world would be different.  To them, I am a demographic, and to them, the nation is a bunch of funny little anecdotes you share at a dinner party.

If McCain wins, and this country stays in this war, and thousands more troops die, will one single person ever come on the air and pull their hair out and yell and say what the hell is going on in this world?  No, of course not.  And worse than that, they will coolly evaluate the nature of the president, of his followers and his detractors, and come to the conclusion that he's either playing with fire, or that he's working a nifty little political game.  How clever he is.  How clever we are.  How well we articulate these insights.

And what a misguided fool I feel like for allowing them so much space within me.  For giving them ratings, and for giving such weight to their bought and sold opinions.

I see now that if this is what politics is (and it may be), or if this is what our country is going to allow itself to be ruled by ("Gore's square, Bush is cool"; "Kerry's uptight, Bush is cool"), then there are better things I could be doing in the meantime, like watch the movie Major League.

Or more importantly, if I were to continue giving to the candidates and causes I believe in, continue trying to influence the opinion of friends, students and family, and one day, teach my children that the whole world might be falling apart, but that that doesn't mean you should too, then I am certain that I will have improved the planet.  And that's more good than (pundit's name here) will ever do.

And so in that instant, I resolved to change.  From now on, when I catch myself arguing with the television, or wondering why Rove is being treated like someone who's opinion matters, or why everyone is having so much damn fun in that studio while Rome is burning, I'm going to simply turn it off, and do anything else.

And while I am going to "hope" that we can "change" the direction of this country, if we cannot, then I have decided that I am no longer going to revel in its demise.

One last thought (maybe) on the debate:

This episode, as viewed the prism of George, reiterates a couple ideas that have been bugging me for a while.  It's the same feeling I get when I see Karl Rove playing the role of pundit and yukking it up with whatever shill has volunteered to represent the left side of whatever valuable thing is suddenly being made worthless by their discussion.

In a week or so, on his show, George will make a joke about the debate, about his performance, and the public reaction.  James Carville and David Brooks will laugh, maybe exchange high fives.  And thus, this whole thing will be forgotten.  At least by them, and really, that's what matters here.

Because, at the end of the day, the people who are arbitrating our national debate aren't that concerned about it.  Or not in the way we want them to be at least.  They're rich, they've got ratings and readers and dinner parties and tickets in the front row at Yankee games.  They've proudly got "friends on both sides of the aisle." 

It doesn't matter to them who wins the election--either way, they're fine.  They hide behind an invisible cloak of neutrality, and what we all choose to call liberal or conservative bias is actually neither.  It's professional bias.

They're biased toward this whole congenial and sober affair they call political reporting, and we, the viewers, the amateurs, are lucky to have them around.  Otherwise, how would we even know what to think? 

Unfortunately, they're partly right, and that's what makes them all the more dangerous, and what has led us to this point, asking people if the "believe in the flag" on national television.  (Poor woman.  Shame on ABC.  Treating her like a Survivor contestant, unedited and provoked for "better" television.)

Whatever thing was in George that led him to the Clintons, and a liberal cause, has not been sidestepped, but rather, swallowed whole by the beast of television celebrity.  What Updike called a "mask that eats into the face."  And we, the viewers, will write letters and complain but George won't lose one moment of sleep over us.  So long as his bosses are happy, and his co-stars are friendly, and they're all one big professional family, he'll be fine.  It's a one-sided relationship.  We care so they don't have to.

And now...the Sunday Funnies.