Ugh, Oh, Good Lord!!!!!!!!!!!! Make it STOP!! PLEASE!!!!

This really deserves no introduction, no explanation, no... good freakin christ, just watch this and tell me you're not afraid. Why, John McCain, WHY!!??!?!?!?!?!



Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick.

This Doesn't Happen In America! Maybe Ohio, But Not In America!

Nice little video from the Simpsons, Homer trying to register his vote(s)... with some fun results.



hat tip: Wonkette.

First the UN, now Epcot

The Onion breaks news today of Sarah Palin's next planned step to make her foreign policy credentials more robust, a lengthy fact-finding mission to Disney's Epcot Center. Check out the details here.

Hamburgers and economics

It's good to see that the economic advisors to the McCain and Obama campaigns are focusing on the important things.

Best part:

GOOLSBEE: Wait -- when they came to a deal...
(LAUGHTER)
... John McCain wasn't there. John McCain was out to dinner at one of the fanciest restaurants in Washington on a double date with his wife, Joe Lieberman and Joe Lieberman's wife. They were having a meal.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: What, does Obama eat at McDonald's every night or something?
(CROSSTALK)

GOOLSBEE: ... for a 3 a.m. phone call.

HOLTZ-EAKIN: You guys don't eat. Barack Obama hasn't eaten since the campaign started? Come on, Austan, get serious about this issue.
The bottom line is this...

GOOLSBEE: If you're having a meal where there are $35 hamburgers...
(LAUGHTER)
... and you get a 3 a.m. phone call, it's time to ask for a doggie bag and get back to work. That's what John McCain was not doing.

Traditional Republican Values

I think the best line has to do with pillows. Found this today, and thought it was very much worth sharing. Also, I think they strategically edited in the image you see paused before you hit play to try and hook random dudes into watching the video! Hopefully it works, either way this thing is pretty damn hilarious.



I'm also a fan of "mandatory smiling"

Surprise!

From Tom Toles at the Washington Post:

Nice Polls

Nice indications today from a Diageo/Hotline tracking poll:

Among registered voters surveyed in Colorado, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Nevada, Obama tops McCain 50 to 40%. Just a week ago, Obama led 45% to 42%.

Nationwide, Obama leads 47% to 41%.

hat tip: political wire

"No Wilting Flower"

Salon has a piece today highlighting why the author, Rebecca Traister, will not participate in the Sarah Palin Pity Party. Traister gets into it on the second page, after documenting well how a variety of correspondents and "media elites" have declared their pity for Palin's position, for the difficult spot she finds herself in, etc. Traister will not have it:

"Sarah Palin is no wilting flower. She is a politician who took the national stage and sneered at the work of community activists. She boldly tries to pass off incuriosity and lassitude as regular-people qualities, thereby doing a disservice to all those Americans who also work two jobs and do not come from
families that hand out passports and backpacking trips, yet still manage to pick up a paper and read about their government and seek out experience and knowledge.

When you stage a train wreck of this magnitude -- trying to pass one underqualified chick off as another highly qualified chick with the lame hope that no one will notice -- well, then, I don't feel bad for you."

But Traister's piece is not simply harsh without reason, not simply aimed at saying to her colleagues, "come on, give her a hard time!" Nope, the piece is motivated by outrage. Traister explains it best herself:

"I don't want to be played by the girl-strings anymore. Shaking our heads and wringing our hands in sympathy with Sarah Palin is a disservice to every woman who has ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because this is an utterly fair dismissal, based on an utter lack of ability and readiness. It's a disservice to minority populations of every stripe whose place in the political spectrum has been unfairly spotlighted as mere tokenism..."

In a week where conservatives are contemplating whether Palin should step down ("Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons"), and others are calling for the McCain campaign to provide an actual real world press conference with Palin ("Until Sarah Palin agrees to a full and open press conference, she should not even be considered as a possible vice-president"), the Salon piece hits a big chunk of what I have been wishing someone would say. Check it out.

(stock wilted flower photo above from istockphoto.com)

Best Response to Bailout Bust

No caption needed here, nicely done Barney Frank (the video is all setup for the first 43 seconds or so, then you get to the good stuff).

"Katrina-Like" is Spot On

This is a very well crafted line, and a very sharp attack emerging this weekend in the aftermath of the debate:



hat tip: Jed Report, Jed posting @ HuffPo

Debate in a Minute

I wish this was a little better, honestly, as it kinda grabs bits and pieces that show tone overall, but manages almost no content. That said, editing down to a minute must have been tough. If you watched the debate and had to summarize the key things that stuck out what would you pick and choose. I'll consider this question myself and post later.

Until then, from 23/6:

Monday Morning Barage of Political Videos!

It's Monday and who wants to think, right? Wait... no... wrong beginning to the post here. It's Monday and the world of viral video had a whole weekend to play on their MacBooks with video clips related (and unrelated) to Friday evening's debate between Obama and McCain. Here are four videos I found while cruising the internets this morning. Hopefully they'll start your week off right!

1. Let's get it out of the way here, SNL did it again, with Tina Fey playing Mrs. Mooseburger herself, Sarah Palin, and Amy Poehler turning in a nice Katie Couric... blinking and awestruck at the bizarreness of Fey's Palin answers. Incredible traits of this video: if you don't find it all that funny, compare it to the actual video of the interview. SNL really didn't take liberties with large pieces of this, they simply had Fey read Palin's lines... or reinact them. Um... yeah, so anyway, that's #1, here:



2. This is the first of two debate-related clips, below you can see a clip where supposedly John McCain mutters "horse shit" twice as Barack Obama makes reference to McCain's recent flub regarding Spain. Now, some may say it's a little unclear whether he is actually saying horse shit or not, but having looked at the video a couple times, it seems like it's not only there, but audible. Let me know what you think!



3. This one is slightly less funny, but incredibly nicely done, and simple in many ways. I thought one of the most effective moments of the debate on Friday was when Obama held up McCain's record of statements predicting how the conflict in Iraq would go as evidence for a lack of strength in judgment. Jed Lewison edited together a video for Huffington Post that simply supplies video to corroborate what Obama said. Damning? I think it is, and I honestly think the Obama campaign should consider running basically this exact video as a campaign ad.



4. Finally, let's end this little journey with more of the funny. Obama Girl has returned with a clip from her new reality show, the Obama Girl and Ralph Nader Show. Ok, so this is actually a nice attempt by the Nader camp to work the viral video thing, and it reminds me of the Obama Girl/Mike Gravel clip from awhile back. Anyway, they make good use of Nader's dry sense of humor, and say what you will about Nader and his choices in the last 10 years, the man is my kind of American Hero. Take issues with his tactics, but I believe in his efforts to build a stronger and more equitable nation and to counterbalance the powerful voice of corporations in American politics. All that aside, the video is rather charming, I think (especially the reference to Bea Arthur... now that's classy!).