Haven’t wept — I mean big, fat, salty tears rolling down my face — since my dad died.  Making an exception tonight.  Cracked open the wedding gift champagne that’s been in the fridge for years.

Our Long National Nightmare Is Over.

My Long Wednesday Hangover Is Just Beginning.

God Bless America.

UPDATE:  I hope Joe Biden can find the Secure, Undisclosed Location.  Cheney might be a dick and not tell him where it is.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 14 Comments »

Over at WorldNetDaily, Dennis Prager, “one of America’s most respected and popular nationally syndicated radio talk-show hosts,” conducts a probing, if imaginary interview with Katie Couric, and by the end of it she’s a quivery, sobbing, mascara-streaked mess.  Now I’m no fan of Couric, but the way Prager dominates, even humiliates, her during their fictional colloquy makes it extremely difficult to watch, and I was tempted more than once to turn away.  And yet, these are serious times, voters are confronted by serious issues, and no matter how uncomfortable or strenuous it may prove, we owe it to ourselves and our country to face the fake truth.

Gotcha questions for Katie Couric

Just as Charlie Gibson did in his interview with Sarah Palin, Katie Couric set out to humiliate the Republican vice-presidential candidate with a series of “gotcha” questions.

Like, “What’s your zip code?”  “Name three members of your immediate family.”  And, “if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you like to see Senator Obama lynched from after you’ve worked your supporters into a bloodthirsty rage?”

This tactic – rarely employed with major liberal candidates – could be used equally effectively against Couric, or most any other liberal member of the television news media. It would be highly instructive to have Couric asked questions in the same way in which she (and Gibson) asked questions of Palin.

Before we enter the voting booth this November 4th, it’s important that we all know exactly what kind of vice president Katie Couric would make.

Q: Critics of the war in Iraq argue that prior to the invasion of Iraq, America had never attacked a country that had no plans to attack it. How, then, do you explain the Korean War?

Wait, wait, I’ve got a better one…You say man evolved from apes.  Well then, how come we still have monkeys?  Explain that!

On my radio show, I have asked this question of some of the most celebrated names among liberal intellectuals, and they had little or nothing to say.

“Some would look at me pityingly, or glance at their watch, but most just sighed heavily and reached for a blunt object…”

Q: Many Americans believe that the most important way of understanding the effects of taxation on government revenues is the Laffer Curve. What is your opinion about this?

I’d say “many Americans” couldn’t tell a Laffer Curve from Kim Kardashian’s ass.

Anyway, Dennis has other hard-hitting Queries for Katie, like “Q: Is there any point in a woman’s pregnancy at which you would call an abortion immoral?” because with constitutional government now a quaint and obsolete concept, power belongs to whoever can grab it, and for all we know, by this time next year Supreme Court justices will be nominated by a conclave of former morning show hosts and confirmed by a two thirds majority of the judges on American Idol.  He also wants to know what Katie’s favorite Federalist Paper is (personally, Dennis likes “the Cute One,” but Charlie Gibson likes “the Quiet One”).

Q: In a question to Palin, you said that “women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.” If that is so, why don’t employers only hire women whenever possible?

“A prostitute standing on a street corner charges 50 dollars for a blowjob.  A man, whose manufacturing job has been recently outsourced to India, opens his own business on the opposite corner, offering blowjobs for 30 dollars.  Now, my mastery of economic theory, as expressed in crude line drawings, demonstrates that any rational consumer would buy sexual services from the man, because the lower cost per blowjob translates into increased purchasing power, and thus more blowjobs!

I defy you to prove me wrong.”

Q: What did you think of any articles in the most recent issues of Commentary, The Weekly Standard, National Review or any other conservative journal? Or do you only read liberal writing?

Because believe you me, there’s nothing funnier than William Kristol expounding on military strategy like Sun Tzu with a disabling head wound.
So, now that the mainstream media has gotten a taste of their own Gotcha!, which questions would you like to ask Dennis?

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 20 Comments »

For the last couple presidential debates I’ve requested a general anaesthetic, but since Bush isn’t involved this time, I’m going to try to get through this thing with just a local.  And with that in mind, we’re mixing cocktails and deciding which of the many blogger-suggested drinking games to play.  Since this is the first of several debates, I’m thinking of starting out easy this time and just taking a swig every time a melanoma breaks out on John McCain’s face.  But you probably have better ideas (and maybe some appropriate cocktail recipes), so consider the comments an open forum on Athenian democracy and alcohol toxemia.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 15 Comments »

In a frantic effort to burnish her national security credentials, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is flying to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, where she plans to go on a whirlwind shopping spree of foreign dignitaries.

Over the course of just 30 hours in New York City starting on Tuesday, the Republican vice-presidential nominee is scheduled to meet with seven world leaders…Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, Palin will hold separate private talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Ali Zardari, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko…

This still leaves her short of Biden’s score, however, so Governor Palin plans to supplement her experience by pretending to confer with the leaders of several fictitious countries, including the King of Ruritania from The Prisoner of Zenda, the Prime Minister of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick from The Mouse That Roared, and the Grand Exalted High Macha of Raspur from What’s Up, Tiger Lily?  She’s also bringing a pair of high-powered Zeiss binoculars to scan the grounds of the U.N. for migratory potentates, and according to the rules of birdwatching she’s entitled to log such encounters as “meetings,” so long as the foreign officials match their description in the field guide and she doesn’t get close enough to disturb their nests.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign continues to insist that governing a state which shares a maritime border with Russia qualifies as experience in foreign affairs, although at least one aide admits that it’s “metaphorical” experience.

A senior campaign aide who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity admitted that Palin’s knowledge of Russia may be limited to the way someone from Miami might obtain a general feel for Latin America.

“It is very much being able to look off the tip of Alaska,” the aide said. “Metaphorically, I’m talking about.”

Each day of this campaign seems to bring us closer and closer to a wholly imaginary presidency, and personally, I can’t wait.  The only time you’ll ever have to hear about administration policies is when you and your friends are sitting around a campfire, trying to scare each other.  Dick Cheney will remain hidden in the bowels of the earth, appearing only when the Senate majority leader says his name three times into a mirror so he can break a tie.  And the President will live on largely in myth and legend, glimpsed only occasionally and from a distance as he strides to his helicopter, like those shaky, out of focus Bigfoot films.

Join us, and pledge your support now!  Sasquatch / Chupacabra 2008!

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 24 Comments »

Greetings from the Great Northwest, where I’m visiting my sister and her family.  To be specific, I’m cowering in my brother-in-law’s office, avoiding the vocal fallout from my nieces’ creative differences over the wii version of American Idol.  (You know, drunk and/or drugged-up Paula Abdul is kind of funny in a “put a goofy souvenir hat on your co-worker when he nods off after two Jagermeisters at the Christmas Party and then post the Poloroids in the Break Room on Monday” sort of way.  Virtual Paul Abdul is a gruesome, dead-eyed abomination who will haunt your dreams like the souls of the murdered crying out for justice!, and then nodding off on the couch in a goofy hat.)

So in quest of a little local color, we check out the front page of The Oregonian, and find a rare example of charity, humility, and empathy in the ordinarily cynical and self-aggrandizing arena of national politics.

LAKE OSWEGO — Congressional candidate Mike Erickson on Monday vigorously defended his 2004 trip to Cuba as a humanitarian mission even as he acknowledged that he spent most of the trip sightseeing and talking to Cubans.

Traveling to Cuba or doing business with the Communist country is sharply restricted by the U.S. government. Erickson was part of a group that gave medical donations to get into Cuba but spent most of the week on vacation, The Oregonian reported Sunday. He visited the Tropicana nightclub and attended Comandante Fidel Castro’s Annual Gala Cigar Dinner and Auction.

Followed by a long weekend at the Godfather II Fantasy Camp, which includes free passes to Casino Night and $100 credit at the Roulette table, two tickets to the Live Sex Show of your choice, a Junior Suite at the Hotel Nacional, and a voucher permitting you to shoot one (1) random peasant in the head without consequences.  It’s also good for unlimited coffee refills at the Breakfast Buffet.

At a news conference, Erickson called The Oregonian’s account inaccurate. He said that he brought 20 boxes of medical supplies and delivered them to aid clinics over two days.

“Maybe some people may have gone there for a different purpose, but not me. Mike Erickson went there truly to see and feel what the people in Cuba were going through,” he said.

He said he has receipts documenting the 20 boxes of supplies but can’t find them.

Well, given liberals’ well-known penchant for vacationing in exotic foreign locales, this guy must be a Democrat.  Let’s skim down, uh, 1, 2, 3 paragraphs…Gee, you think they’d have mentioned it by now…4, 5, 6 paragraphs…What, is he running for Congress on spec?…7 — ah!  Here we are…

Erickson, a Republican

Oh.  Well, who really cares what party he belongs to?  It’s not like there’s an election going on.

…faces Democratic state Sen. Kurt Schrader in the Nov. 4 election for the 5th Congressional District…

Erickson and some friends $1,698 each for a weeklong Cuban vacation that coincided with the Habanos Festival, an annual celebration of Cuban cigars.

And those medical supplies he brought were desperately needed, because you know what happens when those Cubanos start celebrating cigars!  Your arm hair could get singed by a carelessly held cigar, or you might get severe sunburn while standing in line at the cerveza booth, or your pinkie toe could possibly get crushed by a merciless Cuban heel.

Optional activities included dove shooting, a cockfight and tour of a cigar factory.

He said he did not go marlin fishing or dove hunting, as listed on an itinerary provided by the tour organizer.

So that’s a Yes on the cockfights, I gather.  Still, Erickson avoided the fishing and hunting because he’s aware of the awesome responsibilities of a would-be Congressman, and asked himself, “Would Mother Theresa play a 200-pound marlin for hours in the hot Caribbean sun before finally landing it, or use a 12 gauge shotgun to turn the pure white symbol of Christian peace into an airborne sneeze of blood and feathers?”  And his answer was “No.  She would deny herself the gaudy pleasures of this world and make do with smoking foot long Diplomáticos, betting on cockfights, and irrigating her throat with an endless succession of daiquiris brought to her by beardless, tawny-skinned young men.”

He acknowledged that he attended the Castro cigar dinner and the Tropicana in Havana, but he said Castro did not attend the dinner. Erickson said he’s not a cigar fan.

He’d been misinformed about the evening’s activities, and went expecting to see a famously well-endowed donkey.

“I’ve never smoked a whole cigar in my entire life. I’ve puffed on a couple of cigars, and I choke every time.”

Republicans.  Dude, it’s a cigar.  Follow Clinton’s example and don’t inhale.

Under questioning, Erickson estimated he spent about “a third” of his time distributing medical supplies. The rest of the time, he said he visited tourist sights and talked to people to find out what life was really like under the Castro regime.

“Every time I was at dinner, I would talk to the waiters and waitresses and say, ‘Hey, you’re young. What do you want to do in life?’ ” he said.

“Well Señor, until recently my ambitions were modest — to help my invalid parents, perhaps one day to marry and have children — but then I saw this film called Red Dawn, and I realized that Colorado was ripe for conquest!”

“The other two-thirds wasn’t just leisure, or just whatever it was. I was constantly always asking, ‘Hey, what’s going on in your country here?’ “

“Why’s it take twenty minutes to get a mojito from the bar to the pool?  What’d you do, send it by burro?”

He said he came back with a renewed appreciation for life in the United States.

A country where anyone, no matter what their background, can grow up to defraud a charity out of prescription drugs and travel expenses.  But in the spirit of Bill O’Reilly, we’ll let the pre-Congressman have the last word here.

Erickson vowed to keep campaigning and stay focused on issues that matter.

“I think that’s what’s going to win this race for me. I’m focused on the issues and people are tired of the smear campaigns,” he said.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 17 Comments »

Newt Gingrich demonstrates anew that “genius” is the ability to hold two separate ideas in the mind at the same time.  Unless both ideas are really stupid.  Then it’s more just a matter of accidentally contradicting yourself because you forgot what you wrote three paragraphs ago, but I’m not sure what the name for that is.

They (Democrats in Congress) know voters are hurting from high gas prices and overwhelmingly want the government to allow more American oil production. But they can’t side with the American people and risk upsetting their left-wing base.

Because the real American people are firmly on the side of indiscriminately handing out more leases to the oil companies, as Salamander’s following statistic reveals:

In the Rocky Mountains, protests against lease sales rose from 27% of all leases in 2001 to 81% in 2007, according to government and industry records.

Watch out, citizens!  It’s no secret the Republican party is just begging for an excuse to fire the lazy, unproductive American voter and bring in Mexicans to handle the duties of American citizenship that American citizens will no longer perform.  Duties which mainly consist of voting against their own economic interests and then standing by while their jobs are outsourced overseas shortly after the election.  Which means, if this scheme works, we’re going to have to outsource the Mexicans’ jobs to India, while bringing in Basques and Haitians to do the job of Americans that Mexicans won’t do, but that’s the 2010 by-election, so we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Besides, by that point the entire country will have been so thoroughly and patriotically drilled — after Flemish and Albanian scabs voted for the Republican plan to overrule state bans on oil extraction in protected areas, shortly before the last American citizenship duties were outsourced to the Falkland Islands and the northern bits of Lappland — that the whole country will basically look like the Prairie Dog exhibit at the Fort Worth Zoo.  Or Harry Whittington’s face.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 4 Comments »

Yesterday Sheri mentioned that NewsMax was giving away “The Case Against Barack Obama,” by Frodo Bagginses, presumably because turning trees into pulp, and then into wingnutty books, and then back into pulp as quickly as we can is mankind’s only hope of prevailing in our war against the Ents.

Well, our friend Kyle-Anne Shiver over at American Thinker (motto:  “America is like a toilet stall — it’s a good place to sit and think.  It’s also a good place for a Stick-Up™”) wants a piece of the action too.  She quotes from Frodo’s “Obama Timeline” which is sort of like the Obama Body Count, but emphasizes his abuse of power as a state senator, while downplaying his frequent killing sprees, and includes such incriminating items as:

March 19, 1996 – Obama wins Democratic state Senate primary, unopposed.

February, 1997 – Obama co-sponsors a bill that creates affordable local housing funds in order to subsidize private developers.

August 23, 2001 – Bill co-sponsored by Obama, giving special tax credits to donors to private developers of “affordable housing.”

and my favorite: May 21, 2003 – Obama votes for the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act, creating demand for at least 7,000 new “affordable housing” units and letting private developers circumvent local ordinances.

You see, by creating “supply,” Obama also created “demand,” which is pretty presumptuous, because all those people living in appliance boxes and tents made from duct tape and discarded rain ponchos were perfectly content until Obama shouted “Yea” in a crowded state house and stampeded them.  But does he care about the death and destruction he’s left in the wake of his vote for a piece of legislation?

The poor citizens of Illinois are left paying the consequences of Obama’s power.  He’s off in Hawaii resting up for his Denver coronation.

In an effort to determine just how far this pretender is willing to go, Kyle-Anne hit the streets and rousted her usual stoolies:  Rooster.  Huggy Bear.  The Communist Party USA, which snitches that a “broad multiclass, multiracial movement is converging around Obama’s ‘Hope, change and unity’ campaign…”

It’s certainly no secret that America has a number of citizens who would prefer rule by a dictatorship of the new-and-improved rainbow proletariat, but that number has traditionally been a small fringe.  Obama seems to believe, however, that he will win the rest of us over.

Kyle-Anne’s not one to be fooled by a flim-flamming mulatto who sprays the proletariate with decorator colors and tries to pass them off as Skittles.  And I’ll be frank here, I too prefer a more bespoke dictatorship; the most I’ll tolerate is a herringbone tweed, or perhaps a small houndstooth check proletariate.

Since 2000, this nation’s citizenry has been bombarded in systematic fashion with polarizing tactics aimed at one person:  President George W. Bush.  And collaterally, at his party.  At the “religious right.”  At “hard-hearted” conservatives.  At anything and everything whatsoever traditional-American.

So pretty much everybody then.  Well I guess that’s what happens when you send your whole military overseas; the citizenry has to systematically bombard themselves.

Since polarizing the President went national, with the nearly complete assistance of the mainstream media, it broke through, rather quickly, to its counter-side and produced a sizeable backlash among large swaths of the American electorate. 

Which is why today, George W. Bush is more popular than Jesus!

Polarizing the President and his Christian faith quickly produced a determined opposition among those voters, which are a clear majority of our citizenry.

More than a majority, they constitute a clear 100% of 23% of the citizenry.  Statistics don’t lie!

The myriad sufferers of “Bush Derangement Syndrome” have been forced to contend with American common sense within a number of constituencies.

For instance, the Professional Association of Glaziers, Window-Tinters, and Presidential Polarizers.

Obama’s attempt to keep his campaign on the polarizing shtick, by constantly attempting to tie John McCain to George W. Bush, does not seem to be working with voters.

Because they love George W. Bush! 

If it were working as planned, then Obama would be leading in polls by double digits

Because people hate George W…wait a second…

If he had stayed in the predominantly local business of “organizing black folks” for long enough to develop real skill at actually solving problems, seeing firsthand what ideas worked to produce good results, then he might be able to run for President after, say 30 years, on the proving grounds of politics.

Picking a single bale of cotton does not qualify one to put on a tailcoat and work in the Mansion, son.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 14 Comments »

Kyle-Anne Shiver has been quite prolific this week.  After joining the party at Pajamas Media (“Sending the MSM down the river…Then putting its hand in warm water and freezing its bra…”), she’s back in her usual slot at American Thinker, doing what she does best:  Thinking American:

If Barack Obama presents a target-rich environment in his inflated balloon of media hype over one non-accomplishment after another, John McCain presents the opposite.  No hype.  No hot air.

Actually, by this point I think he’s mostly filled with sawdust.

No blathering, bloated claims about ethereal change and meaningless hope in government to save us.  None of this Hollywood stuff for McCain.

Except for his appearances in Wedding Crashers and The Tony Danza Show.  But in his defense, he sulked in his trailer most of the time and wouldn’t make small talk at the Craft Service table.

McCain is scrappy.  He’s a scrounger.

In fact, he’s in your garbage can right now, gnawing on an avocado pit.

He’s downright humble.

Unlike Obama, the Harvey’s Bristol Cream of candidates, who’s downright upright.

Rather than touting his formidable experience, or the fact that he has had three sons in the military

While Senator Obama still refuses to send his 7 and 10-year old daughters to fight in Iraq.

…John McCain presents a true model of decency, self-respect and laudable humility, in the same all-male bundle.

Vote for McCain:  He’s like that bandana full of crap that hobos carry on a stick.

The more I read about John McCain, the more I realize that he embodies so much of what we Americans regard as our exceptionalism of character, our grit and determination, our willingness to strip down to brass tacks to achieve a worthwhile goal

While I don’t personally relish the idea of John McCain stripping, I suspect that deep down, Kyle-Anne would enjoy a peek at his masculine bundle.

…our utter disdain for royal celebrity accoutrement in our leaders.  John McCain is American to the marrow of his bones, going back generations, and evidenced in every sphere of his life.

Vote for McCain:  He’s made from generations-old bones filled with marrow in a sphere.

When the chips were down, did McCain call his celebrity pals in Hollywood to ask for advice and a quick, fancy prop-up and money, money, money?

Does McCain even have any friends in Hollywood?

Probably not.  Once you get to his age, most of your friends are dead and buried.

John McCain flew to Iraq to celebrate Independence Day in the privileged company of those he has always loved best, his fellow men and women in America’s Armed Forces.

He loves them so much he’s never called them a cunt.

A fancy gym?  No.

8 houses, but the in-home gymnasia are really quite basic.  Mostly free weights and jacuzzis.

Shopping?  No.

That’s the Sugar Mama’s job.

A bunch of Berliners to cheer him on?  No, no and heck no.

I love this guy!

Why does she suddenly sound like the drunkest guy at a bachelor party?

McCain’s Country-First life is a winner.   I’m not sure we deserve him, but I sure do hope we get him for our next Commander In Chief.

See, I think that’s a mistake.  If we go into this believing we’re not worthy, and wondering why he’s with us when he could obviously do so much better, then he’s just going to smell our low self-esteem and eventually leave us for some younger, prettier country.

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 14 Comments »

BETWEEN THE LINES
Obama on the Constitution
Exclusive:  Joseph Farah busts myth that founders’ contract is ‘living, breathing document‘
–WND

In fact, it’s stone dead.  Kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!

THIS IS AN EX-CONSTITUTION!

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 3 Comments »

I walked down to the little bakery by the bayfront, gingerly slaloming my way through the holiday throngs in an effort to avoid a jarring (and at this point, superfluous) spinal injury.  And most of all trying to sidestep — torero-style — the deadly onslaught of 18-to-20something jackholes sprinting through the crowd, guffawing and bashing a path with their backpacks and skateboards in an effort to reach the Catalina Flyer before it cast off.  Happy frigging Fourth of July.  You dropped your spare underwear and some balled-up tubesocks.

I got back to the room and found Mary watching the news with unusually rapt attention.

“Hey,” she said, absently reaching for a bagel.  “Jesse Helms got a new lobbying contract.”

“Yeah?  Who with?”

“Satan.”

My Country Right, Wrong or Decline to State | 11 Comments »