The great folks, at Robert Greenwald and company, at Brave New Films have put together a new video remininescent of John McCain doing Peter Sellers’ timeless Dr. Strangelove role (or “How I Learned to Stop Using My Brain And Love Republican Candidates” perhaps?).

Check it out here.

Slim Pickens probably won’t eat his heart out over this (and if you don’t know who slim is, go rent a copy of Strangelove) though Peter Sellers MAY role over in his grave.

“President Bush is standing there giving his State of the Union, and behind him you can see Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi sitting right behind the president. And man, what a strange, you know, it looks like a married couple waiting for their divorce to be final.” –David Letterman

“During the State of the Union address, whoa what a rowdy crowd. Crazy crowd. At one point, Cheney had to fire a couple of shots in the air.” –David Letterman

“President Bush gave his big State of Delusion address. … In our last year’s State of the Union speech, President Bush said, ‘The economy is on the move.’ This year he said, ‘Where’d it go?’” –Jay Leno

“It looks like even President Bush is now being affected by the writers’ strike. Well sure, no new ‘SpongeBob’ episodes.” –jay Leno

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I was going to write about last night’s Republican Debate, but all there is to say can be wrapped up in this: McCain owned Romney, and when either of them weren’t talking, they were both staring in unfettered, smug amusement at the “little candidates.” I wanted to punch them both. I’m hoping tonight’s Democratic Debate will not only be more interesting (I’m betting on claws), but help me decide which candidate I truly want to support.

Instead of the debate, I decided to focus on the following: as the dust is is brushed off the archives of media containing the records of the leaders in the Presidential Race, I’m getting very excited to see the tidbits that will see the light. Case in point, from 2000: John McCain hates gooks.

Arizona Sen. John McCain refused to apologize yesterday for his use of a racial slur to condemn the North Vietnamese prison guards who tortured and held him captive during the war.

“I hate the gooks,” McCain said yesterday in response to a question from reporters aboard his campaign bus. “I will hate them as long as I live.”

Should we have a serious candidate for president that not only refers to people proudly with a racial slur, but also harbors a dark, eternal hate for …well, anyone? I somehow don’t find that in line with the Christian teachings the Republican Party so often is wont to flaunt.

I won’t pretend that I’m not bitter, sad, and very angry that Democratic presidential nominee candidate John Edwards suspended his campaign yesterday. I thought he and his wife, Elizabeth, and many fine Americans of all economic backgrounds, waged a brave and brilliant campaign that focused on something almost NO ONE else in this campaign, short of Dennis Kucinich who dropped out last week: the rising majority of Americans suffering at the bankrupting of America by Republican rule and Democrat-capitulation.

We ALL lost, regardless of your party or preferred candidate, when we let the media and the Republican party turn this race only into an Obama-Clinton slugfest, and let Edwards get pushed ever back and finally out of contention. Unlike most - virtually ALL - presidential candidates since I became eligible to vote in 1980, I really believe Edwards meant just about everything he said. And that Elizabeth, with incurable cancer, insisted he run AND participated with him, impressed the hell out of me.

As much as I can’t imagine voting for ANYONE but a Democrat in November, I do not feel either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton speak for the majority of Americans. I think they, at another time, would be viewed as somewhat moderate Republicans. But, as I’ve said, if Republicans won’t elect moderate Republicans to office, why the hell should the Democrats. All I can do is hope that we hold their feet to the fire if one of them wins Election 2008 and that they are just sounding “conservative” and ever so careful during the race, while they show less concern for millionaires and billionaires and corporations once they get to the Oval Office.

Sorry, I got felled by hand problems the last few days BUT… I’m even more distressed to listen to the Republicans debate at California’s Ronald Reagan Library in the last GOP debate before Super Tuesday next week invoke in every other word the name of Ronnie Raygun - the man who said “fuck the poor; if you aren’t a millionaire, I don’t want to hear from you” - in every other breath.

The LAST time Ronald Reagan had a salient thought was back in the 1950s when, as a Democrat, he headed the Screen Actors Guild and tried to mediate the damage being done by horrible hatemongerers like Joe McCarthy tried to force everyone in government and Hollywood to name fellow workers and friends as “reds”, even when it was not true. After that, he got involved with Nancy Davis, an even less talented actress (but oh so rich and from old California Republican money) than First Lady - not that Ronnie was a good actor), became a Republican and, like too many in the GOP, disconnected his brain. By the time he reached the White House, he was already well into the grips of Alzheimer’s Disease - it’s a huge lie that the effects came after he left office; Alzheimer’s does NOT work like that.

So if you aren’t afraid YET that the Republicans want to return to the “glory” days of the Reaganomics 80s, you damned well should be. Anyone who didn’t make it rich in the 1980s had a damned hard time… and the people who puppeteered Reagan made sure of that!

Maureen Dowd has something against the Clintons, and she uses her platform at the N.Y. Times to ensure that the rest of the world benefits from her take on the grudge.  Dowd’s latest column, titled Seeing Red Over Hillary, and focusing on the now famous interaction between Senators Obama, Clinton and Kennedy immediately prior to the SOTU seems particularly noteworthy for the singleminded and patently unfair attacks on Senator Clinton.  (more…)

A day late, but this is primarily pure outrage; if someone paid me a great deal of money (and by that, I mean like $1000) back in January of 2007 to concoct the most outrageous, ignorant speech - going with naive, not snarky - containing a bizarro-world amalgamation of exactly how not to run America, how not to take Americans’ best interests into account, with the very distinct focus of simply pissing myself off, I could not have come up with the disastrous anger-fest that was George Bush’s final State of the Union Address. I’m glad I put my daughter to bed before this yearly session of Congressional Calisthenics began because I have not shouted such foul language at the television with such frequency and vigor in a very long time.

Short short version: President Bush either has not a single damned clue as to what is happening in America and the world at large or is purposefully deluding himself and the 15% of Americans who actually believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

And now, more snark, now with more bullets!
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From CNN:

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, two sources inside his campaign said Wednesday.

Edwards has told top advisers about his decision. It is expected he will announce it in a speech at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Edwards has amassed 26 delegates in the race for the Democratic nomination.

New Orleans is the same city in which Edwards declared his run to be the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.

And because he’s not officially endorsing anyone today (but may in the future), the articles I was able to find quickly degraded into mentioning how cynics would view this as questioning whether the flailing Edwards voters would be voting like their women or like they’re black, immediately followed by a “fair question” phrasing of just such speculation.

This will also ease the burden on republicans who can now cozy into a familiar racist and/or misogynist role. Rush’s Oprah-fication of America, anyone?

I wish John and his family all the best and, like when Kucinich left the bus, hope the remaining candidates can pull from the best of his ideas to strengthen their campaigns.

Happy Birthday to me, and over 2 weeks early! That’s right, Rudy Giuliani, the wooden-toothed professional crooner of 9/11 and all-round smug failure is prepared to pull out of the presidential race this very morning before the last Republican debate before Super Bowl Sunday and Super Tuesday. I think that somehow makes today the Ascension of Mary and places Mardi Gras firmly on the biggest primary day of the year, guaranteeing a slight booze shift to the polls and complete confusion amongst the pundits. Again. But I digress.

What could possibly make this better? Irony, of course! Rudy Giuliani will be making this announcement from the Reagan Library (where the debate will later take place), the living symbol of the dry-hump chew toy darling of the Republican Party, in order to endorse Grandpappy McCain, the only Republican running for president who - according to pundits and the talk radio faction and many Repubs - is not a Reagan Republican. Ooh, snap!

But why McCain? I can’t wait for Rudy’s blah-blah explanation but would like to take a pass on hearing Chris Matthews spout “Maverick” yet again. John McCain is not Tom Cruise or James Garner or Mel Gibson; it’s John McCain, not John McClane, Chrissy. Yippee-ki-yay, motherf–but I digress.

McCain’s playing the game, and he’s playing it well, despite his detractors on flip-flopping, inconsistency, and age. He’s got Giuliani’s support now and there are hints that he’s going to help fluff Huckabee through Super Tuesday to keep the votes away from Romney and cinch up the nomination. Can we smell a McCain Huckabee ticket? Someone light some incense; I think I’m gonna be sick.

McCain beats Romney, Giuliani and Huckabee in that order.  

That high picthed keening noise you heard when the race was called was Pat Robertson wailing and gnashing his teeth.   Robertson can not stand McCain, Romney is an apostate, Huckabee doesn’t stand a chance.  I guess the coveted Robertson endorsement of Giuliani, which made such a splash a few months ago,  really didn’t pan out so well for either one of them.

Chuck Norris has a lot of work to do cleaning up his mess with the geriatric set.  How smart was it to diss the old folks immediately prior to the all important make or break Florida primary anyway?   Here is a calculation for you, in the best tradition offered by Mr. Norris in calculating Senator McCains age after 4 years in office.   1 Chuck + 1 microphone +1/2 bright idea = 4th place.   

Bill Clinton responded to a question about why Senator Obama is having to run against two Clintons by invoking Jesse Jackson’s primary victory’s in South Carolina.

Clinton swears that was not an attempt to inject racial politics into the debate… and even though I am an Obama supporter, I may agree with Bill on this one.  Because considering one previous South Carolina primary winner in particular is cause for believing that Obama is on the march to the White House: Governor Clinton carried the state in the 1992 primary. But sadly, considering that Bill has been widely labeled as the 1st black President, maybe invoking past S.C. primary winners actually does raise racial questions.

Shucks! There goes my illogical attempt to justify President Clinton’s oddly out of context ‘Jackson won S.C. too’ answer. (more…)

So there was this primary in South Carolina on Saturday. And after Obama spanked everyone, Bill made a belittling comment about Jesse Jackson winning South Carolina and that Barack was running a good campaign. Après Bill, le déluge (with all the pileup crap that came even before) from TPMtv:

“Gangbang!”

Sometimes I think that all these pundits sit around thinking that American people sit around thinking about the pros and cons of the candidates as much as they do. Hell, even I don’t. They hover over their shiny round tables, nursing their fifth cop of coffee spewing any and all sputum that will come to their flapping lips and hoping they don’t let anything Imus-esque slip from their golden tongues. Using an endearing dedication to political theory as a science, they battle back and forth looking for the cause/effect relationship of why a poll would not be spot on when we get the actual results?

But they always forget one important aspect of democracy: one person’s well-educated decision counts the same as another person’s eenie-meenie-miney-moe, and with the offensive volume of pundits and reports and talk radio paired with candidates who are very, very similar, I think we’re looking at high turnouts with many more voting methods of the latter variety than any of us would like to admit. Unfortunately, the outcome is not always the most deserving candidate, but often the candidate we deserve.

Considering Bush has been known – mature, wise fellow that he is – to flip the finger at press and photographers, a part of me wonders if, on the occasion of his final State of the Union delivery tonight (Monday), he might just tell the truth, certain that no one can do a damned thing about all the misery, injustice, and death he has wrought. God knows the man looks for opportunities to smirk ever more insultingly.

So here’s what I think he would say if truth serum were administered to him just before the speech:

Good evening, you pussies and ingrates:

I could give you my usual bullshit about how I gotta hard job and I work hard (damned, I say that a heluva lot) but we all know if damned good ‘o me to bother to put in eight hours a WEEK between my naps, ball game watching, riding my mountain bikes OVER old ladies, and planning for the vacations I take ev’ry few days.

But anyways… I won’t make this long ‘cos you don’t wanna hear it and frankly, I like to pretend to get into bed real early like so I can hide my drinkin’ and druggin’ I’d make certain you’d do federal time for. So let’s get this sucker over with.

Too effin’ bad if you don’t like the job I’ve done; it was never up to you anyway. And mixed in with all the lies was a little truth, anyway. Like when I said I wanted to make America an ownership society – not my fault if you thought YOU would be the owners when I really meant Saudi nationals, wealthy Kuwaitis, and scores of other rich for’ners would come in and buy everythin’ up ‘cos I made sure you can’t afford to breathe.

As for Iraq, boo-frickin-hoo so many have died. At least they’re not people I care about. My dumb-as-dirt daughters are just fine and livin’ like princesses so I don’t give a tinker’s damn that your kid is too dumb to get into college ‘cos I dumbed down the requirements for public education or ‘cos I made sure they can’t afford to go on to school. After all, we gotta military recruitment quota to fill and it’s not like there are jobs out there for your grown kids to get; and where they can find jobs, I’ll make damned well sure they are jobs that can feed a family. Besides, college ain’t all its cracked up to be. Just look at me and I went to a bunch of the best effing schools in the country. (more…)

From CNN’s Ticker:

Sen. Edward Kennedy backed Sen. Barack Obama for president Monday, saying: “It is time again for a new generation of leadership.”

“It is time now for Barack Obama,” the Massachusetts senator and brother of the late President Kennedy added.

He stood with Obama, his son Rep. Patrick Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy before a screaming capacity crowd of students at American University in Washington, DC.

“I feel change in the air,” he also said. And this is a pretty big deal. We’ve listened to everything from whispers to idiot dialog about how Obama is like the New JFK; we’ve listened to all of the Democratic candidates (and Mitt Romney) shout to the rafters that they are the candidate of change. And now we’ve got Ted Kennedy, a political institution unto himself, talking about Barack Obama as that agent of change, as people talked about his late brother. The day before the Florida primary, 8 days before Super Tuesday.

Wait a second, isn’t he pretty dang close to both Clintons? So maybe he’s simply putting his personal feelings forward and voting what he truly feels. Because, you know, that happens all the time in D.C.

I’ll let you know when I’ve got the conspiracy theory worked out. Illuminati: check….

Is it any surprise we’re hearing all this talk now of big, bad terror attacks planned soon - right now for Europe (Spain, etc.), but I’m sure we’ll see this extended to us - when we have a presidential election come November? After all, they need to build up the case for supported “all war, all the time” guaranteed us by whatever GOP candidate rides into the Oval Office on the numbers from rigged electronic voting machines.