Bailout

Johnny Rictus is runnin' scared:

McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.

In this scenario, the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined, and take place in Oxford, Mississippi, currently slated to be the site of the first presidential faceoff this Friday.

Running from the Troopergate investigation, the press and the debates. Running on empty. Until there's nowhere left to run.

The McCain Record

An empty suit defends an empty suit, with empty rhetoric:

Couric: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

Palin: He's also known as the maverick though, taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about - the need to reform government.

Couric: But can you give me any other concrete examples? Because I know you've said Barack Obama is a lot of talk and no action. Can you give me any other examples in his 26 years of John McCain truly taking a stand on this?

Palin: I can give you examples of things that John McCain has done, that has shown his foresight, his pragmatism, and his leadership abilities. And that is what America needs today.

Couric: I'm just going to ask you one more time - not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation.

Palin: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you.

He's known as the maverick. What more do you ingrates want?

The New Underclass

Won't somebody think of the children?

A nose job in a hospital with a private nurse in attendance had been something of a rite of passage for Joan Asher's children. But when her fourth and last child was ready for her own rhinoplasty recently, Ms. Asher asked her to postpone it.

The financial markets were simply more out of whack than her 16-year-old's proboscis.

"The other noses were more prominent," the stay-at-home mother from a tony New York City suburb in Westchester County told her 16-year-old daughter. She could get hers done when things settled down.

The financial crisis on Wall Street has New York's well-to-do reeling. The people who fuel the area's economy with their spending on art, fashion, cars, restaurants, plastic surgery and other luxe goods and services are starting to cut back once-lavish budgets. As a result, those who cater to their every whim -- from nanny agencies to jewelers to yacht builders -- are seeing clients tighten their belts on expenses from the millions to the thousands.

Fortunately, our story has a happy ending:

Ms. Asher was able to let her daughter get her nose job before school began after plastic surgeon Alan Matarasso said he could do the procedure in his office operating room on Manhattan's Upper East Side for about $2,500 less than if they went to a hospital, stayed overnight and hired a nurse. At home, Ms. Asher stayed up most of the night after the surgery, putting cold compresses on her daughter's eyes every 20 minutes. "She was fine," she says. "It came out great."

Sure, Joan had to stay up most of the night. But at least she didn't have to get a job.

The story doesn't mention whether Ms. Asher got a kickback from the freakish publicity-crazed Dr. Matarasso for yammering about her 16 year old's nose job on the front page of the Weekend Journal.

The Trip To Nowhere

Shorter Sharia Palin lickspittle: We approved Monegan's travel to Washington D.C. on official business, but we had no idea why he was going there, we couldn't imagine it was for lobbying, and when we found out it was to obtain funds for a rape prevention program to benefit victims of sexual violence, we were justifiably outraged.

You can make this shit up.

No On Hate

The will of the majority:

Opposition to a California ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage is mounting following Attorney General Jerry Brown's move to change the language on the initiative, according to a Field Poll to be released today.

The poll found that just 38 percent of likely voters support the measure, while 55 percent intend to vote no. That compares with 42 percent in support and 51 percent opposed in July.

Brown amended the Proposition 8 summary language after the state Supreme Court's decision on May 15 to overturn California's previous ban on same-sex marriage.

Golden!

Revisionist Hysteria

Special Ed Morrissey is a big, blubbering baby. The pretend seaman who called Patrick Henry a puss (scroll down) is in full tantrum mode today:

David Freddoso attempted to appear on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio show last night, and just as when Stanley Kurtz tried to talk on the same show, the Barack Obama campaign organized a disruption of the show. The campaign sent out an e-mail to supporters in the area sliming Freddoso as an "extreme" hate monger, a "smear merchant", and attempted to silence him despite Rosenberg having an Obama surrogate on the show:

Yes, according to Blubbering Ed, Obama supporters tried to disrupt a radio call-in show and silence the show's guest by calling into the show. Because if enough people call into a radio show, the station's transmitters fail and the guest dies a painful death.

Blubbering Ed isn't even clear on whether Fredo appeared on the show; so disruptive were the telephone calls that the manful Fredo could only "attempt" to appear.

The only change Special Ed can believe in is when he soils himself.

(No link to Special Ed.)

The Expectations Game

What this country needs right now, more than anything, is a leader who can speak without reading from a teleprompter.

I think it's fair to say that this is Governor Palin's greatest accomplishment.

Coming next: McCain promises that a war with Iran will revitalize the economy.

Feel The Whoo Hoo!

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Washington Mutual Inc., the biggest U.S. savings and loan, had its credit rating cut to junk by Standard & Poor's because of the deteriorating housing market.

S&P reduced its rating on Seattle-based WaMu to BB- from BBB-, leaving it three levels below investment grade, the ratings firm said today in a statement.

"Increasing market turmoil and the related impact from managing its concentrated mortgage franchise in this troubled housing and credit cycle led to the downgrade," S&P wrote. S&P cut its rating on the subsidiary bank to BBB- from BBB.

Whoo Hoo(TM)! Who's got the shitty credit rating now?

Couldn't have happened to a bigger bunch of bastards.

The Bush Legacy

WASHINGTON -- In another unnerving day for Wall Street, investors suffered their worst losses since the terrorist attacks of 2001, and government officials raced to prevent the financial crisis from spreading. ...

"I know Americans are concerned about the adjustments that are taking place in our financial markets," Mr. Bush said at a ceremony to welcome the president of Ghana.

Bush has managed to do what the terrorists couldn't. Destroy the American economy.

Thank God that Bush's would-be successor has a firm grasp of the fundamentals:

The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain said. "I've got Greenspan's book."

He explained.

Republican Family Values: Blame It On The One-Year-Old Edition

Just say no, kids:

Newsweek published a first-person account of her struggle, but it included some errors.

"It began with Vicodan [sic]. In 1989, I had ruptured a couple of disks carrying my 1-year-old, Bridget, in a pack on my back," she wrote.

But Bridget was not born until 1991.

Dittoheads

It's always tragic when young people try to emulate their favorite celebrity. And even more so when their activities are revealed by the same newspaper that broke the news about that celebrity.

But Howie Kurtz has already said those charges are totally "bogus". So who am I to believe?

It's interesting to see that the McCain camp got out ahead of the story, through their reliable mouthpiece at the Post. But surely Kurtz investigated the charges thoroughly before pronouncing them bogus. Right?

P.S. to HBO: The West Wing meets The Waltons meets Trailer Park Boys. Call me.

Pigs (Three Different Ones)

So Much For Reading Comprehension

"When he took the stage, a message that appeared on the large screen behind him read, 'Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.'" -- Brad Stone, New York Times, September 9, 2008

Mary Cheney, 24/7

It didn't enter the lexicon of political scumbaggery in 2004, but it should have. Like Swiftboating, Mary Cheneying is shorthand for a deliberately dishonest political tactic. To Mary Cheney, one feigns umbrage at an innocuous, legitimate and truthful comment order to falsely accuse one's opponent of a personal attack or invasion of privacy. Various hacks in the media (see Kurtz, Howie) repeat the Mary Cheney, as do various pinheads with their own blogs, thus turning the Cheney into a "legitimate" news story. Two of the biggest stories stinking up wingnut blogs and glorified blogs such as Politico.com at the moment involve the McCain campaign Mary Cheneying Senators Obama and Biden.

Such scumbaggery will increase exponentially as we draw nearer to the election.

Talk Stupe

At the same time the RNC is keeping Sharia Palin away from all media and sharp objects, Eggs Drudge and his groupies are professing outrage that Oprah Winfrey won't interview Sharia.

I'm sorry, but there's a logical progression to these things, and it must be followed. Sharia doesn't get to do Oprah until she and her family do Montel Williams and Maury Povich, plus a sit-down with Klee Irwin and an on-the-street interview of Todd by Bridgetta Tomarchio.

Dumbpuck

WASILLA, Alaska -- The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.

The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.

"It's too bad that the city of Wasilla didn't do their homework and secure the land before they began construction," said Kathy Wells, a longtime activist here. "She was not your ceremonial mayor; she was in charge of running the city. So it was her job to make sure things were done correctly."

To be fair, George Bush has cost the country more than $1.3 trillion in the costs of unnecessary war, engineered through lies and fraud. And Rictus Johnny probably cost the taxpayers more than that in crashed fighter jets. So Palin's just a small-time incompetent fuckup.

Warning: "crashed fighter jets" link leads to John Derbyshite quoting a racist shitstain. But even assholes can get get their facts right.

It looks like someone besides James Walcott is reading -- and heeding -- the statement of the obvious profound advice of your humble correspondence.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has no intention of becoming a Sarah Palin attack dog — but has no qualms about going after John McCain, people close to the former first lady say.

"She's not the answer when it comes to winning conservative women — she never was — and we're not going to be anybody's attack dog against Sarah Palin," said a Clinton insider. "To be fair to Obama's people, they haven’t asked us to do that."

Slamming Palin to win back women already hostile to Obama is pointless, the insider said, because Clinton's most loyal base is working-class voters, not women in particular. "Attacking Palin is checkers, attacking McCain on the economy is chess."

I would have said it's abusing the developmentally disabled, but fair enough.

By the way, Glenn Thrush of the AP, author of the article cited above, is a giant scumsack. He twice refers to Senator Clinton as a "former first lady," but doesn't mention she's a Senator once.

Bit of an earthquake here.

That's it?

Sharia Palin's Lying Circus

Mark Kleiman has the facts.

Drill, baby, drill!