HELLO JOE, WHERE DID YOU GO?

Can't you just hardly wait for the post-mortems on the campaign of poor Calamity John?

The scandal that the News Media will not pick up on for today is the 4,000 schoolchildren bussed in to fill the empty seats at this political rally. The entire Reliance, Ohio school district was apparently enlisted to revivify the McCain campaign's image. Perhaps he should have simply gotten down to brass tacks and asked for some blood. Or platelets, anything!

The absence of one newly-minted living talking point celebrity isn't nearly as meaningful. OTOH, it is funny.

An Overflowing Cup of Joe

Unlicensed plumbing contractor and McCain Foreign Policy Advisor Joe the Plumber was opining again on the danger of Obama: would an Obama presidency be the death of Israel? "I'll have to go along with that," said Joe, who did, to be fair, caution people to make up their own minds and not just base their decisions on his seconds and seconds of intensive reflection.
He was okay with himself even after Shepherd Smith of Fox (!) gave him every chance to back away from his cheerful, unmalicious, unthinking, devastating slander of a major public figure.

He has happily embraced the same media that McCain and Palin have been demonizing, finding the "media filter" suits him fine. He always has a word or two for whatever microphone sticks its tempting self under his nose. He was a familiar caller to right-wing talk shows in the area.

Joe used Barack Obama for his chance at the Big Time, and it worked. He saw Obama in his neighborhood, made his way through the crowd and asked a set-up question, since the answer was supposed to make Obama look bad and didn't actually apply to Joe. Now, McCain is using Joe and Joe is using McCain. Joe's PUBLICIST is angling for a book deal and a RECORD CONTRACT.

Everybody was using everybody except Obama, who simply tried to answer the guy's question seriously, and ironically will end up cutting Joe's taxes. Obama was nice to Joe, who is too full of himself and his own opinions to absorb any outside information.The glory of this incredible year: just when you think they've hit a new low, they dig down and come up with a lower low. From Sarah the winking Serial Liar to Joe the Singing Unlicensed Plumber.

ALERT! JUST IN-A FEW FUN FICTS FROM THE MAVERICK

Fun, because they are fictional facts, so lets jump in on the neologism-coining craze and call them FICTS. These are courtesy of intrepid newshound Larry King at CNN, the Network that Said NO to Obama's paid infomercial, and replaced it with a free infomercial for McCain: John Sidney McCain III is from humble beginnings. Although he is the son and grandson of admirals, flew and crashed one airplane after another, fortunately not onto the airfield that bears his own name, and was admitted to elite schools and programs on the strength of his last name, intrepid newshound Larry King managed to worm out of him that he came from humble beginnings. There's a scoop for you.

Another scoop is his plan for the economy: he's going to grow it. And there you have it, my friends, the detail you 've been craving that Obama's afraid to give: John McCain will GROW the economy right out of this mess.

Thank You, and Good Night.

Oh, you want more? Okay.

He will give tax cuts just like Reagan did, and that will grow the economy. Intrepid newshound Larry King did not point out that Reagan left the economy wobbling around carrying the biggest honking deficit it ever had to heft, or that Reagan didn't come in looking at a deficit there aren't enough zeroes in cyberspace to express.

The third and final scoop of the evening: he's delighted with Sarah Palin's maverickiness, and whenever she's around, he finds her presence uplifting. Oh, there are a lot of comedians who are grateful to him just for that last sentence. She's going to drag him up to ANWAR and show him how she dresses those meese.

That's more than enough scoops from McCain for one night. Apologies to Stephen Colbert, whose concept "truthiness" has had every damn body on the Internet trying to come up with a better neologism. There is no better neologism, but "Ficts" fills a needed gap, I think; while truthy things seem like they ought to be true, Ficts are obviously truth-challenged, if not truth-deprived, and depend on the kindness of strangers (like intrepid newshound Larry King) not to challenge their existence.

PLUMBING THE SHALLOWS

McCain was as pleasant as usual, which is to say he acted as if Obama was something that needed to be scraped off the bottom of the national shoe. And if ever there was a time to advocate for retiring the use of finger quotes, it is now. Using finger quotes around "health of the mother" is the worst McCain faux pas, maybe ever! Well, in the last twenty-four hours.

The worst faux-pas since "We Have Got Them Right Where We Want Them!" :

Yes, having our opponents 10 points ahead of us allows us to keep an eye on them, the sneaky Arab bast**ds!

Mr. Polly thought McCain had won, just, with the fabulous "I'm not George Bush" line. If this was the best line of the night, it was a pathetic night, say I, Mrs. Polly. Remember the old apocryphal story about LBJ calling his opponent a child molester, and after an aide points out the opponent isn't a child molester, LBJ says, "I know, but I just want to hear him deny it."? Well how is it a zinger for McCain to have to deny he's George Bush?

Of course, I couldn't bear to look directly at the event; as usual, I read about it as others live-blogged, while Mr. Polly gave me updates. I'm easily nauseated, and tonight I'm still a delicate, Dresden China-frail blossom, having had oral surgery. So add the debate to the presoftened, lukewarm swill I require. Like much of the rest of America. But I had my gums sliced to ribbons, what's their excuse?

It's fun to see the pundits check each other in their peripheral vision, trying to get a read on what they ought to conclude about what just went on right in front of them, and adjust accordingly. Tonight, as for the first debate, several went out on a limb and called it for McCain only to have the focus groups and snap polls reprove them. And this after everyone, even Public Radio people, got totally obsessed with the CNN Wiggly Line of Damnation! The CNN Wiggles plainly favored Obama, particularly the female wiggles. How could anybody sit through 90 minutes of line watching and call the debate for McCain?

Well, time to take a Vicodin and go on the Oral Surgery Opiate Nod. Kids, remember to floss after every meal, snack, or accidental inhalation of particulate matter. It's important.

Iraq-Ribbed Republicans

The Three Foreheads of the Apocalypse

Once the conservatives accept their nominee, and he accepts them, Hell will experience a hard frost. And so will cartoonists; John McCain is hard to draw. His square, All-American jaw has softened into jowelly chipmunk cheeks, which, when c0mbined with near-eyebrowlessness and expanse of overhanging, luminous forehead, drawn imprecisely, could slop over into Rush Limbauggery. That would be mid-addiction, middleweight Limbauggery; lately Rush has risen, like an unbaked bun, to new, doughy heights, his little poppy-seed eyes have all but disappeared. I'd say he's off the Oxycontin. For now.

I checked out the cartoon archive at Slate, and sure enough, all the political cartoonists are having trouble with McCain. Most, including Luckovich, (who does the funniest W I've ever seen), have to label McCain. They usually put a McCain button on him. Otherwise, he's a generic old guy with white hair.


Karl Rove is astonishingly easy to draw, for somebody who is essentially featureless. His bland Scandinavian pastiness is interrupted by surprisingly liquid blue eyes, with dark lashes. Rather like Damien. His baby-smooth brow says that persecuting Democrats and smearing war heroes doesn't interfere with his sleep any.



Employing the same group who once smeared him and his family, including his little adopted daughter (from Bangladesh, called "John McCain's black love-child" in a notorious telephone push-poll during McCain's run against Bush in 2000), may have caused McCain to lose sleep.

But I doubt it.

I Busted Petraeus

Really! General Petraeus came to the Armed Forces committee hearing armed with an array of pretty charts, showing provinces now more under control than ever before except for sometimes and in certain places arguably not, and then these two beauties:


Is that an 8 billion dollar projection, or are they just glad to see us? How can it be accurate unless we're lending/giving them the money?


Then we have this:
The surge was working just great, till recently, when the corner we thought we'd turned brought us back to the last corner we thought we'd turned. Perhaps we're just circling a square post.

John McCain, as the co-chair, luminous as a light bulb, made his opening statement supporting the war, because if we were to withdraw, what would Al-Queda In Iraq think? So we must continue to make war because we're worried about what the enemy will think of us.

The hearing was also notable for introducing the Sons of Iraq. They are concerned Iraqi civilians who just want a free country, like our Sons of Liberty, who were trying to throw off the yoke of colon----um, well, the analogy breaks down a little. Well, and unlike the Sons of Liberty, being a Son of Iraq is a paid position.

They do say freedom ain't free.