I have decided, upon further reflection and much heavy drinking solemn prayer, that I am no longer worried about the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election. For awhile there, I was genuinely afraid that Oldy McOld and his handpicked cabal of liars, thieves and killers would somehow slither into office in November, insuring Four More Years of neocon reign and guaranteeing that, by November 2012, there would be nothing but a blackened cinder circling the sun where the Earth used to be.

Yes, it seems silly now in retrospect, but once Obama sewed up the nomination, I instinctively winced at the thought of the smear campaign that would soon issue forth from the fetid fever swamp of the American Right. The Rovian playbook would be dusted off once again, and another seemingly easy Democratic Presidential win would dissolve in a hail of manufactured conservative bullshit. After all, it worked for them in 2000 and 2004; why should this year be any different?

But then I got a good look at some of the truly desperate, pathetic b.s. that the 101st Fighting Keyboarders are attempting to sling against Obama, and I knew that there was nothing at all to fear. For instance:

Obama is a “celebrity”and too good looking. And he takes vacations in Hawaii, which is practically a foreign country.

Plus, he’s a Negro.

Also, he’s too healthy and works out too much. No, really. No, really. NO, REALLY!

Oh, and finally, just for good measure, he’s the Antichrist.

Really? That’s it? That’s all you clowns got? I can understand that eight solid years of spewing the most mindbendingly stupid flapdoodle imaginable, all in the increasingly shrill and frantic attempt to prop up the deservedly plummeting approval ratings of the Worst President Ever, must have taken its toll, both mentally and physically. After all, how many Cheetos can a man eat in defense of his Preznit, and how many baldfaced lies can he belch forth, before there simply is no more to give?

Still, this shit is weak, even considering the source. If this is the best they can do, Obama will win by twenty points in November. With any luck, the Republican Party might even go belly-up in the wake of the utter pasting to come, consuming itself in a frenzy of self-flagellation, as the religious crazies and the corporate greedheads turn on one another like rabid dogs.

With any luck, the “Reagan Coalition” that has spent the past thirty years destroying everything that once made this country great may dissolve forever, leaving nothing but nine trillion dollars of debt, the shreds of our Constitution, several endless, unwinnable wars, and a lingering horrid stench to indicate that it had ever been here at all. And we will salt the earth on which it trod, and offer fervent prayer that future generations are not so blind and foolish as to ever let Republicans be in charge of running anything, ever again.

Hey, a boy can dream…

Ok, so maybe I’m the only one speaking about it.

Except for (surprise, surprise!) a Republican congressman:

Concerned that the military is selling pornography in exchange stores in spite of a ban, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to clean up the matter.

“Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit,” said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., unveiling his House bill April 16.

His Military Honor and Decency Act would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that banned sales of “sexually explicit material” on military bases.

The new language would “close existing loopholes” in regulations to bring the military “into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law,” Broun said.

“Allowing sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes, feeding a base addiction, eroding the family as the primary building block of society, and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad,” Broun said.

Broun said he wants to bring the Defense Department into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law “so that taxpayers will not be footing the costs of distributing pornography.”

Exchange officials noted that tax dollars are not used to procure magazines in the system’s largely self-funded operations.

But Broun’s spokesman John Kennedy contended that taxpayer dollars are involved — “used to pay military salaries, so taxpayer money is, in effect, being used to buy these materials,” he said.

(link via TBogg)

I suppose it would be redundant of me to point out the unmitigated lunacy of a political party which believes that torturing prisoners doesn’t sully the troops’ honor and denigrate their moral standing, but looking at skin mags does. So I won’t point that out.

Instead let’s tackle the bigger issue here: why are Republicans so COMPLETELY, UTTERLY FULL OF SHIT? Why does every self-appointed Republican moral guardian eventually end up sending lewd emails to his underage staffers, writing about sex with falafels, heading to the Caribbean for a weekend of Viagra n’ jailbait, or striking a “wide stance” in a public men’s room? Given the proven track record of his peers and hysterical tone of Rep. Broun’s moral outrage, I fully expect him to eventually be found hogtied in a wetsuit with foreign objects shoved up his you-know-where.

Whoops, looks like another Republican beat him to it.

Huh huh. I said “beat.” Huh huh huh huh huh…

For the past several weeks, I’ve been trying my absolute damnedest to ignore the ridiculous spectacle that is the 2008 Presidential campaign. I’ve done so mostly out of mounting, teeth-gnashing frustration at the Democratic Party’s insatiable need to tear itself to ribbons with petty squabbling, turning what should have been the easiest Dem win since 1964 into a possible loss and raising the terrifying possibility of Certifiable Batshit Loon John McCain as our next (and probably final) President. Another four years of Republican rule will sound the final death knell of any last lingering, desperate hope that this country can somehow pull itself out of its current death spiral…a prospect that depresses me so greatly that I’ve preferred to pretend it isn’t happening.

However, sometimes a manufactured political controversy comes along, one so ridiculous that it punctures even my comfortable bubble of self-absorption and triggers my Tirade Button. Like, say, when a Presidential candidate makes a speech pointing out the rather obvious fact that millions of poor and rural Americans are feeling angry, abandoned, and bitter towards a government that has left them to twist in the wind for the past thirty years…and is promptly branded an “elitist” by the very same cheerleaders of the policies that threw poor and rural Americans under the bus in the first place.

Oh, and also by Hilary Clinton and John McCain. Assuming anyone can tell the difference between the two anymore, based on what comes out of their mouths. I sure as hell can’t.

Now, it goes without saying that the concept of Hilary or McCain or any Republican (and yes, I’m including Hilary in that category from now on) casting themselves as spokespeople for the concerns and frustrations of economically eviscerated Rust Belt voters is so palpably ludicrous as to defy description. Trying to wrap my poor brain around the jaw-dropping lunacy of the situation sent my Irony Meter into the red and shorted it out completely. So I’ll let this commenter at Balloon Juice sum it up for me:

1. Hillary helps pass NAFTA.

2. Pennsylvanians lose good jobs.

3. Obama empathizes and understands why they’re bitter.

4. Hillary calls Obama out of touch with the people.

5. I go off the wagon and start huffing paint again.

Amen.

But then again, is it really necessary to go to great rhetorical and oratorical heights in order to defend Obama from this idiocy? He does an admirable job or skewering his opponents’ hypocrisy all by himself:

“I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how’re you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What’s going on there? We hear that its hard for some working class people to get behind your campaign. I said, “Well look, they’re frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they’ve seen jobs shipped overseas. They’ve seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.

“And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you.

“And so people end up- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.

“So I made this statement—so, here’s what rich. Senator Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.’

“Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain—it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch?

“No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.”

Sweet Jesus, it’s so nice to imagine having an grownup occupying the Oval Office again. After eight long, dreary years of DubYa, I’d almost forgotten what that felt like.

Welp, the votes from Maine’s Democratic caucuses are just about all tallied up, and it looks like Obama won by a landslide. I had planned to attend the caucuses, but it snowed all day, so I stayed home. However, so many people braved the bad weather that the official turnout broke state records. These people are obviously all far better human beings than I am.

This, the latest in a string of consecutive wins for Obama, has triggered chaos and shakeups in the Clinton campaign. It should also pull him just about even in total delegates, despite the most Herculean efforts of those scrupulously dedicated professionals at Fox News to convince everybody otherwise:

In other fantastic news for Democrats, John McCain has received the official endorsement of George W. Bush. Amazingly enough, even at this late date, Dear Leader remains so well-insulated from the undeniable fact of his own staggering unpopularity that he doesn’t seem to realize that his endorsement of McCain’s campaign represents the kiss of death:

Regarding attacks on his performance from Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Bush said, “If the Democrat party feels like they can win an election by focusing on me, I think they’ll be making a huge tactical mistake.”

Of Obama, the president said, “I certainly don’t know what he believes in.” In response, an Obama campaign spokesman, Bill Burton, said: “Of course President Bush would attack the one candidate in this race who opposed his disastrous war in Iraq from the start. But Barack Obama doesn’t need any foreign policy advice from the architect of the worst foreign policy decision in a generation.”

Of course, this could all be a ruse. Perhaps Dubya is actually smarter than I give him credit for, and knows full well how disastrous his “endorsement” is for McCain’s chances. Perhaps this is just George’s way of delivering one final kick to the balls of the man he smeared into the ground back in 2000.

Regardless of the reason behind DubYa’s endorsement, the die is cast: he has put his official stamp of approval on John McCain’s campaign, where it will hang like a poisonous millstone for the remainder of this election season. If you think these pictures won’t be showing in every Democratic television ad after the convention, you’re nuts.

   
(Above: candidate, albatross)

Face it, Republicans: this is the final nail in your political coffins. You’re going down like the Hindenburg in November. Granted, your imminent election defeat, while immensely gratifying to those of us who actually want the human race to survive the next four years, is far less punishment than you all deserve for having spent every waking hour of the past eight years doing everything in your collective power to run this country into the ground and turn it into a sick mockery of everything it once stood for.

But it’s a start.

Lord knows, we have nothing but respect for the profound wisdom of Fox News patriot and intrepid culture warrior Bill O’Reilly. However, when he recently declared the War on Christmas™ over and himself the victor, he may have, sadly, been a tiny bit premature.

We have recently acquired irrefutable photographic evidence of the latest tactic by which the Mexislamicommunohomofascists and their Liberal allies will attempt to destroy Christmas and America. It is our sad duty to inform you that, within mere hours, God’s Favorite Country™ will be under attack by legions of

ANGRY MONKEYS IN SANTA SUITS!

Above: the enemies of America, Jesus, and Freedom. In fact, many of their native countries are MUSLIM. Coincidence? We think not!

With his time in office sadly growing short and his Prezznitall Legacy as yet unwritten, Dear Leader had hoped to build on the rousing success of his War on Terra™ in Iraq by launching another one against Iran. Accordingly, he and his Holy administration have spent the past few years priming the oil pump, as it were, by scaring the bejeesus out of the American public with tales of imminent nukular capability in Tehran. It looked like everything was going to plan…

And then those traitorous, terrorist-loving America-haters in the American intelligence community had to go and spoil the party by letting slip the news that Iran hasn’t had a nukular program for over four years! Dear Leader gamely tried to catapult the propaganda back into his favor, insisting that Iran must come clean about the details of the program it doesn’t have and changing the definition of what constitutes a nukular program in the first place. Alas, it was clear that his yeoman work was in vain, and the Nattering Nabobs swarmed over the rotting carcass of his grandiose plans to set the world record for most separate wars started in one Presidential regime.

Clearly, bigger rhetorical guns were needed on this new front of the War on Dissent Common Sense Terra™. Accordingly, the patriotic, America-loving denizens of the Right Wing Blogosphere have charged to the rescue, doing what they do best whenever Dear Leader is contradicted – questioning the patriotism of those doing the contradicting! Huzzah, well played, sirs!

Still, it is becoming increasingly clear that Dear Leader’s noble goal of starting Armageddon and bringing on The Rapture during his time in office may, sadly, not come to fruition. Therefore, it is comforting to know that the one single man most vocal in his desire to Bomb The World Into Democracy™ is none other than the chief political advisor to the 2008 Republican presidential frontrunner. We may just get that war yet! Glory!

It’s official, kids. The war in Iraq has shoved our political discourse straight through the looking glass. How do I know this? Because George Will is actually sounding sane:

What “forced” America to go to war in 2003 – the “gathering danger” of weapons of mass destruction – was fictitious. That is one reason this war will not be fought, at least not by Americans, to the bitter end. The end of the war will, however, be bitter for Americans, partly because the president’s decision to visit Iraq without visiting its capital confirmed the flimsiness of the fallback rationale for the war – the creation of a unified, pluralist Iraq.

(link via TBogg)

I understand that having all that blood on one’s hands must be exceptionally sticky and uncomfortable, which is why so many of the loudest cheerleaders for this pointless, stupid war are now speaking out against it. But do they really think a few critical editorials – four and a half years too late – are going to buy their way out of Hell?

Ever since 9/11 and the start of Dubya’s Excellent Mesopotamian Adventure, a popular pastime of the right wing media and blogosphere has been to denigrate war opponents, liberals, and those who object to the Bush administration’s ongoing shredding of the Bill of Rights as cowards/dupes/traitors/America haters.

Yet, when some dingbat writes a column in a major American newspaper openly pining for another 9/11 as a means to “bring Americans together,” do our intrepid, patriotic heroes at Fox rush in to denounce his idea as murderous lunacy?

Um, not exactly:

Note that, of the three Fox barking heads in this clip, only one takes what should be the default position of any human being with an IQ over room temperature and a functioning conscience. The other two actually offer qualified endorsement of the concept that several thousand civilian deaths would be an acceptable price to pay to shut those naysayers up and get us all back on the same “team.”

Remind me, again, exactly who the traitors to America are?

Could somebody please explain these assholes to me?

Honestly, I thought I was finally insulated against their bile. I thought I had finally set the intellectual, moral, and philosophical limbo bar so low that the American Right could no longer slither under it. I thought no new, depraved level of verbal sewage emanating from their fever swamp could shock me anymore. Not really.

And then a madman shot 33 people on a college campus, and this gang of soulless lizards lined up to blame the tragedy on coed dorms, liberal permissiveness, the victims themselves, and Muslims.

And they’re still at it! A week has passed, and the torrent of deranged editorials shitting forth from the clenched sphincters of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders continues unabated. In the past few days, we’ve seen the Virginia Tech massacre blamed on

1) Gun control

2) Male rage against the feminization of America

3) Radical Marxist college professors

4) Atheism

And, as always, those old conservative staples,

5) liberalism and

6) The victims. Those pussies.

And, for the truly unhinged, SATAN HIMSELF!

To paraphrase the tagline from a blog I happen to very much enjoy reading:

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

I’m (respectfully) stealing this post title from The Goat, and I second his sentiments.

I’d really like to report that, out of respect for the victims and their families, the bloodthirsty denizens of the Wingnutosphere called a moratorium from their brainless braying and resolved to wait at least a day or two before trying to use this tragedy to score political points. However, as TBogg so ably documents, no such luck…

On a stranger and more morbid note, I can’t help but notice that this is the second time in a dozen years that a horrific massacre has occurred on Patriot’s Day. And no, before you ask, I’m not about to suggest some wacko conspiracy theory. There is no connection whatsoever between the two events; the first was an act of terrorism, and the second appears to be the proverbial violent loser on a rampage.

The only reason I bring this coincidence up is to suggest, as a native of one of the two states that observe this holiday, that maybe we discontinue doing so. I know that, from now on, whenever the third Monday in April rolls around, I sure as hell won’t be thinking about Lexington and Concord, but rather about bodies being pulled from piles of rubble or carried out of campus buildings.

(Update: 4/17) I should, in all fairness, give credit where credit is due. The Right Blogosphere is proving themselves incredibly inventive in their attempts to blame the actions of a deranged lunatic on their usual targets: liberal permissiveness, the victims themselves (for not tackling the guy as he was reloading) and, of course, Muslims, Muslims, Muslims, and more Muslims.

To paraphrase a commenter at Alicublog:

I’m thinking of purchasing a handgun, to protect myself from conservatives.