The reason you shouldn’t vote for the McCain/Palin ticket is the odious John McCain himself. Talk about sleaze — the man has been a creepy, bullying, spoiled beast his whole life.

Similarly, in local politics, Michele Bachmann is corrupt. How these people achieved such a high position in our country’s leadership is incomprehensible.

Here’s the VP debate exactly as I remember it: Palin was cheerful, folksy, always evading the questions and changing the subject she was prepped for, and completely devoid of substance. I especially liked the introductory ground rules, which the media have taken to heart: “Due to the historically low expectations for governor Palin, were she simply to do an adequate job tonight, and at no point cry, faint, run out of the building, or vomit, you should consider the debate a tie.”

The ‘folksiness’ grates, as Patricia Williams notes — it’s a misleading proxy for authenticity, and authenticity is too often regarded as a proxy for competence and knowledge. We need leadership that actually has some skill in managing, now that we’re deep in this crisis the last folksy boob we elected led us into, and instead we’re getting a beauty queen whose major qualification seems to be the ability to drop the ending “g” from words. That would be OK if she had some ability beyond that, but nope, it’s not there.

Another example of the contrast: Biden and Palin were asked to name the past vice presidents they admire most. Palin fumbled, mentioned first Geraldine Ferraro (who only ran for VP) because she “shattered part of that glass ceiling”, and then named Bush Sr., because she liked vice presidents who went on to become presidents. (Right. Chills run down the spine, don’t they?) Biden didn’t hesitate and said Johnson, because of his knowledge of politics.

Oh, but Palin does have one other talent: she’s a well-trained attack dog. I think we can expect much more of this kind of slander from the Republicans in the next few weeks. She has come right out and accused Obama of associating with terrorists now.

Mrs Palin described Mr Obama as someone who saw the US “as being so imperfect… he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country”.

Mr Obama served on a charity board several years ago with Mr Ayers, who is now a professor at the University of Illinois.
The White House hopeful, who was a child when Weather Underground was active, has denounced Mr Ayers’ radical past.

I expect she’ll start talking about how Obama is a Muslim who will want to be sworn in on a Koran soon. It’s all going to be lies and innuendo from the Republican side from here on out, and it might just work — especially if she says it with a dimple and a smile and a few lazily formed gerunds.

Popescu is running for some political office (the article doesn’t say what), and he recently gave a talk at a high school where he frankly stated his views.

“A young man asked me what I think of homosexual marriages and I said I think homosexuals should be executed,” he said. “My whole reason for running is the Bible and the Bible couldn’t be more clear on that point.”

I get the impression that this guy doesn’t have a chance of winning his election, but still — it’s likely that saying homosexuals are evil will cost you fewer votes than saying you don’t believe in any gods, at least in this country. That always seemed backwards, to me.

Got your popcorn and jujubes? Ready for the clown show? The debate begins shortly, and this is the place to leave your comments.

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Half an hour in, and I’m seeing Biden being good and specific with facts at his fingertips, and doing a good job of answering questions with substance. Palin is an airhead who’s spouting more fluff and ignoring the questions — she keeps going back to energy and pretending she’s an expert. It’s very annoying, but she’s not descending into fumbling babble-babble, so I’m sure the audience is going right along with it. Come on, Biden, slam her back on the futility of thinking Alaska’s relatively tiny oil reserves can save the country.

Jebus, now she’s pretending to be an environmentalist.

I’m really disappointed that Biden wants to deny homosexual marriage, just like Palin.

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Oh, no. SHe just praised Henry Kissinger and claimed that those foreigners hate our freedoms. She’s another Bush.

I’m happy with Biden so far — he’s good at bringing everything back to McCain’s record. Palin just fudges McCain’s record at every step.

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Man, Palin is revolting: she just said that all those Washington insiders are the same (including McCain?) and that Joe Biden has been approving of McCain’s war plans all along. Ugh.

And if she claims she’s a maverick one more time … she’s a Republican tool, get real.

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WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL PALIN THAT ALASKAN OIL RESERVES ARE NOT SUFFICIENT FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE?

Shining city on a hill, beacon perfect, force for good…empty, dishonest platitudes. We’re not going to become a better country with a gladhander who thinks we’re already perfect in charge.

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Oh, good! Biden charges up and denounces this “maverick” nonsense. Best part of the debate so far.

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Palin just said she likes being able to answer these tough questions — she hasn’t answered a single one the whole hour and a half, but has been ducking and skipping and dodging.

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All over. Biden clearly won — he sounded presidential, human, intelligent, and actually addressed the questions without being too harsh on Palin. Palin was a flag-waving cheerleader, with a voice that really grated on me, and she was evasive in answering questions. She didn’t pull any major gaffes, though, so since everyone had exceedingly low expectations for her, they’ll probably think she did fine.

No big knockout, then. No huge embarrassing boo-boos from either side to keep the media entertained. I’m still mostly reassured that Biden will be good in the job.

Today is the day we all dread, the day of the vice-presidential debates. We know Sarah Palin is incompetent and not fit for office, but the question is…will she manage to pull off the spunky/cute routine and win over the superficial morons of the country despite her Bush-like anti-intellectualism and lack of curiosity, even if she does execute a few major flubs? Will Biden throw away a victory by looking pretentious? We shall find out this evening.

Until then, warm up with these amusing links to the ongoing Chronicles of Palin.

• Ron Numbers on Palin’s creationism

  

• Palin needs the word “new-clear” spelled out phonetically

• Palin can’t name a single newspaper or magazine she reads

  

• Palin’s scandal is all about petty revenge

• More examples of Palin babbling

• Remember the mysterious bulge on Bush’s back during his debates? Do you think they’re frantically fitting Palin with an itty-bitty microphone right now?

  

We’re worried about the current financial crisis — in fact, the whole world is concerned. Most of us have simple explanations for the mess we’re in right now, such as excessive deregulation, lenders raking in short term profit at the expense of long term stability, a weakening economy, and the misrule of George W. Bush and his gang of Rethuglican cronies, but we’re missing the real root cause: it was the gays. Some big flaming homo flaunting his ungodly desires one time too many finally tipped God over into a big snit, and as we all know, God’s aim sucks, so when he tossed that lightning bolt of righteous indignation down upon Broadway, he missed and hit Wall Street instead.

No, seriously.

In a September 25th blog post titled ‘The Nation Will Right Itself If It Fixes Sex’, Christian Civil League of Maine Executive Director Michael Heath writes that the financial crisis facing Wall Street is a symptom of America’s sinful sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay unions.

“Our crisis is a symptom, not the cause,” writes Michael Heath. “I am not saying I know whether this financial crisis is God’s judgment or not. It is not for me to know that definitively.”

He doesn’t know for sure, but he does seem to have some rather definitive notions about exactly what would tickle God’s funny bone.

Heath goes on to list policy changes that would make God “crack a smile,” including: End abortion rights and defund non-profit groups supporting it, amend state constitutions to ban gay marriage and eliminate domestic partnerships and civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and end discrimination against private religious schools and homeschools.

Whoa, that god sure has some specific and sweeping policy proposals for an ineffable being. And for all of his aw-shucks disavowals, Mike seems to have some inside knowledge on God’s quirks.

But wait! He has missed some. It’s not just those gay people…

A related post by Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian at the National Review’s website pushes a similar theme, this time focusing on Friday’s failure of WaMu.

Krikorian suggests the big bank failed because it was too accommodating to minorities, including gays, African-Americans and Hispanics.

Right. It’s the fault of those minorities, the swarming leeches who take and take and take and don’t compliment my golf game and who don’t pay me bonuses and who want me to pay for their cheap little dreams and not my big important dreams (my Lexus my Rolex my mistress’s boob job my condo my implants my home theater system the good booze the cubans the stuff they can’t have it’s mine), profiting like parasites off the hard work of upper echelon MBAs who barely got what they deserved for distributing the wealth to the little people via all their costly purchases of yachts and beemers and rare wines and priceless artwork and ski vacations in Aspen and indulgent jewelry and new consumer electronics every week and goddamn but it makes me angry to see good white male alumni of Yale and Princeton and Harvard forced to bear the blame for the weakness and lack of vision of little brown people and degenerates who threw away the whole American economy because they just had to buy some ticky-tacky cheap ranch-style lath-and-particle-board piece of crap in the suburbs, and then they don’t even worship the True God, the God of prosperity, the God of the moneychangers and the Pharisees, the God who tells me I’m His Number One, the One God who is God who is His Own Son, who is white dammit white and nicely groomed like an American and not one of those dingy off-color immigrants but a Real American with a pinky ring and a good suit and a little cologne so He doesn’t reek of cabbage or whatever other ungodly stinking rubbish the foreigners gobble down, and God Jesus Lord has a good tan and nice abs (but He only likes girls) and a nice firm manly butt (but only leers at cheerleaders) and He’s big and firm down there (maybe He’ll let me watch) and He wants to hold me and run his fingers through my hair (like I was His beloved no like I was His best friend no like I was His best salesman yeah that’s it that’s safe.) God only loves those who look like Him who looks like me. Amen.

Whew. I have to stop trying to imagine how these people think — it’s just too dangerously weird. And those guys are nuts.

(via Greta Christina)

Another interesting blog that has been around for some time is Charles Stross’s — you ought to check it out, and the comments are often informative too. One in particular was brought to my attention — it’s a comment made in response to another fellow, Dan, who is something of an American triumphalist, seeing us spiraling upward, ever upward, into glory and a bold Star Trekian future of wealth and prosperity and technology. Maclaren wrote an antidote, which I include below. I don’t agree with it entirely — we aren’t quite as bad off as it says right now, although I can see his word-portrait as a picture of America 5 years from now, easily, and I don’t see anyone trying very hard to put the brakes on our descent into madness.

Sometimes Stross’s blog is very depressing, too.

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