This Weekend in WTF

Let's get all the weekend's icky stuff out of the way first:

The Anchorage Daily News skewers Palin for having "abdicated" all of her gubernatorial duties during the campaign.

"Way back when, before John McCain chose Palin as his vice presidential running mate, Palin promised to cooperate with the investigation.

Now she won't utter a peep about it to Alaskans. Nor will her husband, Todd, who definitely needs to explain his role in Troopergate.

Instead, Alaskans have to sit back and listen to John McCain's campaign operatives handling inquiries about what Alaska's governor did while governing Alaska."

Next, McSame proposes we fix health care using the same methods he claims broke the economy.

Oh, and don't worry: McSame supports stem cell research. Just not the embryonic (read: useful) kind.

Maureen Dowd brings us more of her campaign fantasy world, essentially imploring Obama to "get angry" and attack McSame on all of his lies and deception.

Now, I love Maureen Dowd but I have to say I don't really agree that Obama should get angry and go on the attack. Frankly, things are looking up for him and I'd like to think it has something to do with the faith he puts in his constituency to see through McFailin's lies. And it's not as if he hasn't run some smear ads and he certainly calls McSame out with his wry humor at rallies. I believe the reason he's had such a strong recovery from the RNC bounce is that his devoted supporters have been hounding McFailin from day one and people are starting to listen to us.

So I say, Barack, you just keep on doin' what you do, and leave the mudslinging to us - you know we love it anyway.

NYT columnist Frank Rich worries that McSame's many and varied lies are not being challenged, and echoes Amy Poehler(as Hillary Clinton)'s now-infamous sentiment "I invite the media to grow a pair."

Mark Bowden's column from the Philadelphia Inquirer is, as far as I'm concerned, way to lenient on Palin and the McSame campaign in general . But we all know I'm not "willing to give her the benefit of the doubt." In spite of my disagreement with much of what Bowden says, the column makes an excellent point about a disturbing line you may have missed from Palin's RNC speech. (Give yourself a break, it got drowned in lipstick jokes and disparaging remarks about community organizing.)

"'Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America,' said Palin, and then, referring to Barack Obama, quipped: 'He's worried that someone won't read them their rights.'

Quite apart from the cheap distortion of Obama's position, typical of most campaign rhetoric, this is a classic lynch-mob line. It is the taunt of the drunken lout in the cowboy movie who confronts a sheriff barring the prison door - He wants to give 'im a trial? It is the precise sentiment that Atticus Finch so memorably sets himself against in Harper Lee's masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird, when he agrees to defend a supposedly indefensible black man charged with rape (falsely, as it turns out).

-snip-

We are at war against forces who seek a permanent state of fear, for whom violence is an end in itself. Our side of the fight defends government by consent, and the rule of law. It is why we fight, and what makes our use of violence against our enemies morally defensible. This is why it is critical that we respect individual rights and act lawfully.

That does not mean reading Miranda warnings to enemy combatants, as Palin glibly suggested, or affording them the full battery of rights given criminal defendants in this country. It does mean that even those accused of the most vile crimes have some.

Our Founding Fathers called them 'unalienable.'"

I tried to cut out the BS and give you the relevant parts, but if you're interested, find the entire article here.

Last but not least on the columnist front, Nicholas Kristof exposes the ways in which the right is fervently trying to other Obama without bringing up his skin color.

So, in lighter news:

SNL is on a roll this election...check out last night's opening sketch featuring McSame doing studio recordings for his smear ads.


Plus: Possibly the most scathing anti-McSame ad I've seen, and it's been released by a private citizen. You go, Citizen X. You go.

An article from the NYTimes will get you ready for debate season:

a) in spite of supposed "worry" from the Obama camp about Biden performance, I f*cking ca't wait to see the VPs...

b) I think the worst mistake McSame can make is assuming he doesn't need to prepare for this - then again his head's been blowing up like a balloon since August. I'm psyched.

Biden Slams McSame on Labor in Virginia; McSame Denies Claims by Lying.

I wish I wrote the headlines. Oh yeah, and VIRGINIA IS A BATTLEGROUND STATE!!! I'm so stoked, dudes.

In other awesome news: North Carolina is now a serious battleground state. Check this out.

The actual poll press release is a pdf, so I linked you into Christian Dem in NC's DailyKos diary.

And then there's THIS:

Obama hits 50% in the Gallup poll.

So you're seeing the polls looking good for Obama, but you're wondering what impact that can actually have on the election...maybe billysumday's DailyKos diary will help you understand.

I'm really attempting not to get my hopes up. But with so many supposedly "no-contest" red states getting closer and closer as we head into the debates, the fact is Obama has a serious chance of pulling some surprise swings come November.

Along those lines: WaPO covers Obama's tough battle to win Florida in November.

Now let's make all these crazy statistics and all this back-and forth analysis real into something real.

Check out local coverage of Obama's Jacksonville rally: 20,000 people came out and an estimated 8,000 more were turned away because the arena was filled to capacity!!!
(Do I need to remind you that McSame attracted a whopping 3,000 people to HIS Jacksonville rally??)

Finally: you know the drill:

The NYTimes FINALLY covers Health and Human Services' attack on our reproductive rights!!! Read the column here. Find out how you can help here. THERE ARE ONLY 4 DAYS LEFT TO PROTEST!!!

The deadline is also closing in for VOTER REGISTRATION. 15 days left!!! If you need to register, know someone who needs to register, if you need information about polling locations near you or about getting an absentee ballot - basically any information you could possibly require can be found here.

Until tomorrow. Peas.