Reasons To Re-Elect Barack Obama

I'll be publishing this blog's long-awaited endorsement at some point, but I figured I should publish this work product, which was intended to be an eventual e-book, but I ran out of time.  I'll probably have a few more before next Tuesday, but the first 50 should get you off to a decent start.

1.               We swear, by 2014, we’ll definitely know how to fake the unemployment rate correctly.[1]

 

2.                Hey, it takes at least eight years to wreck an economy.

 

3.               If we lose, Joe Biden will have to go out and get a real job.  Or worse yet, we’ll send him to a nursing home.  You don’t want to send Joe to a nursing home, do you?  Have a heart![2]

 

4.               Give us four more years, and we swear that our position on gay marriage will evolve to where we can actually say the words together in a sentence.

 

5.               C’mon, don’t you like having a President that Hollywood likes hanging out with?

 

6.               We promise, if you re-elect us, Michael Moore promises not to make any more crappy movies.[3]

 

7.               We’ll pass BidenCare, which is 50% more likely to be constitutional!

 

8.               Michelle is finally proud of her country.  You don’t want to make her ashamed again, do you?

 

9.              We’ve taken a lot of Chicago’s corrupt politicos to Washington, D.C., thereby cleaning up some of the corruption in Chicago![4]

 

10.            Presidential second terms are usually crappy, but our first term was really gawd-awful.  Don’t you want to see how much we can lower the bar with four more years?

11.            We’ve only appointed two Supreme Court justices – with another term, we can get a justice who’ll restrict that stupid Second Amendment.

 

      12.            You’re not a racist if you don’t vote for us.  But we can still call you one.

13.            Our new jobs program: a Reality TV program where people compete to be the guy who carries around the President’s teleprompter![5]

 

14.            We didn’t plan on having to issue that pardon for Eric Holder until January 2017 – please don’t make us do the paperwork now.

 

15.           This time, we’ll have ATF illegally smuggle guns into Canada, too!

 

16.            If you don’t re-elect us, the two most powerful Democrats in Washington, D.C. will be Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.  Nobody wants those two in positions of power, right?

17.            We will finally admit that it really was Barack in the “Whoomp!  There It Is!” video.[6]

18.            If you don’t re-elect us, how long do you think it is before Barack shows on “Dancing With The Stars?”  Seriously, you do realize that watching Barack being judged by Bruno Tonoili will weaken America’s standing even if he’s out of office.[7]

19.           We’re way, way, way, way better than Jimmy Carter and James Buchanan.[8]

20.            Ron Reagan, Jr. endorses us, and he shares the same name as Ronald Reagan![9]

21.            In an era of high unemployment, it would be awful to have two more people lose their jobs.

 

22.           We know we wasted money on Solyndra, but if you vote for us, we’ll only invest in IPOs where we get tips from Nancy Pelosi.

23.            If you think about it, the last few years are just like the scenes in a classic 80’s movie, where the protagonists are struggling against the man, and you doubt they’re going to turn it around… and then here comes the montage!  Don’t you want to see what happens when the montage starts?  We could set the entire second term to “Let’s Hear It For The Boy!”[10]

24.            Okay, we’ll delegate everything to Hillary this time.

25.            Dude, we can get you tickets to Springsteen’s next tour.

26.            C’mon, we’re liberal Democrats.  You couldn’t have expected us to know anything about the economy.[11]

27.            Look, it’s Sarah Palin!  She’s evil, dontchaknow?

28.            To quote Otter from Animal House, “You fucked up.  You trusted us.”  But that movie ended pretty well, so why not just re-elect us?

29.            By re-electing us, you’ll assure that Barack Obama can never be elected President ever again, thanks to the 22nd Amendment.  You don’t want to let him get elected again, do you?[12]

30.            The Obamas don’t even have a house in Chicago anymore[13] – do you want to leave a family homeless?

31.            With four more years, we should be able to convince Jeremiah Wright that the CIA did not invent the AIDS virus.  Or at least persuade him to stop talking about it.

32.            If you re-elect us, Michelle promises that all of you can have a cheeseburger and milkshake to celebrate.[14]

 

33.            If Barack loses the election, he may take up smoking again.  You don’t want to have him set a bad example for America by doing that, do you?

34.           We’ve got a solution to the entitlement problem – and we’ll unveil it just as soon as we’re re-elected.[15]  We swear.

 

35.            As soon as we’re re-elected, we’re sending Joe and Jill to Vegas – Joe’s card-counting abilities will solve the debt problem in one weekend.[16]

36.            Like we keep saying, change is hard – so why make a change at the top of government?  Let’s choose the easy way!

37.            As we have told you, we came to Washington to end the finger-pointing and blame games that voters hate.  But we can’t do it because of those awful, awful Republicans.  It’s all their fault!  Yes, we’re pointing at you, John Boehner![17]

38.            We just got some books out of the library that will help us figure out the economy.  Just give us four more years to read them, and we’ll be all good.[18]

39.            If you don’t re-elect us, it will mean you made a mistake four years ago.  And no one wants to admit to a mistake, right?

40.            Remember, we got bin Laden.  Just imagine what we can do to you if you don’t vote for us.[19]

 

41.            Michelle has already planned a taxpayer-funded trip to New Zealand and Australia next year.  If you don’t re-elect us, Barack has to tell her they may not be able to go.  Do you really want him to have to do that?  They already promised the kids![20]

 

42.            If we lose re-election, Barack will probably end up needing to do something to be on TV all the time.  Yup, you guessed it – he’ll have his own show on MSNBC.  Do you really want to make television even worse?

 

43.            Remember that lady who said that our election was great because she no longer had to worry about anything, because we would pay her mortgage?  Well, we haven’t gotten around to that yet, so we need another term.  You don’t want to let that lady down, do you, America?

 

44.            That guy on SNL is just starting to get really good with his Obama impersonation – it’ll take at least a year for him to get up to speed on someone new.  We can’t have that sort of comedy deficit.[21]

 

45.            Did we mention we got bin Laden? Oh, we did?  Just checking.

46.            Iran might get a nuke, or something.  That might happen anyway, but with us in office, no one on the left will complain if we take steps to stop it.[22]

47.           The mainstream media always has to work so hard when Republicans are in office, trying to dig up scandals and report on news rather than having it fed to them.  Do we really want to make their jobs harder for them?

 

48.            We still need to implement the death panels in Obamacare.   Oops, we didn’t mean to say that.  We meant to say, we still need to implement the death panels in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[23]

 

49.            If Joe Biden doesn’t have a job, he’d be free to come harass you.  And trust us – as Barack knows, listening to Joe talk is a pain the ass.

50.            People will stop kissing our asses if we’re not in office anymore, and we’ll need to go into therapy, and that will be on your dime as taxpayers.  You’ll be increasing the deficit by untold millions so some doctor can listen to Joe whine while he lays on a couch.  Talk about government waste.[24]

---

[1] This time, we won’t count people who live with their parents, anyone who watches daytime TV (since that should be a job), reality TV contestants, and anyone who isn’t actually on a job interview at the time the count is being done.

[2] Especially for the other people in the nursing home – it’s bad enough to live in a home without having to listen to Biden’s stories.

[3] And we can enforce this – we’ve got his donut supply being held up by Michael Bloomberg’s health department.

[4] Please ignore that Rahm Emanual behind the curtain.

[5] Second place gets to explain Turbo Tax to Tim Geithner!

[6] Furthermore, Joe will admit to being Tawny Kitaen’s body double in the Whitesnake video where she dances on the car.

[7] Worse, just imagine him palling around with a Kardashian backstage.

[8] Plus, Joe is way better than Spiro Agnew!

[9] Plus, he was in Soul Man!

[10] John Cusack has tentatively agreed to show up and star in the movie!  And the CIA is looking for Molly Ringwald right now!

[11] Seriously, check the track record.  You would have been better off expecting a lecture from Charlie Sheen on sobriety.

[12] Understand, we’ll work toward repealing that pesky little amendment in the next four years.  Lousy Constitution.

[13] This may or may not be true – we need to check with Tony Rezko.

[14] Just one cheeseburger, mind you, and that milkshake better be small.

[15] Please note that we did not define the word “soon” or state how many times we need to be re-elected.

[16] Okay, Joe doesn’t know how to card count.  But he’s taking lessons.

[17] But we’re not pointing our finger – it’s more of a sharp stick Joe found on the back lawn during the Easter Egg Roll.

[18] Joe is totally psyched to apply the lessons he learned in this German book, Das Kapital.

[19] We’re just kidding.  But hey, for your own safety, please provide your address to the Teamsters.

[20] They’d already planned to snag a diggery-doo as a souvenir!

[21] Worse yet, Horatio Sanz is refusing requests to come back as the emergency plan in case the GOP nominates Chris Christie.

[22] Okay, some people might complain, but the media won’t report it.

[23] You know, that still doesn’t look right.

[24] And under Obamacare, you’d also have to pay for the massage therapy, too.

Simpsons Quote of the Day

I will refrain from spending too much time wondering how this will compare to our future under Obamacare....

 

After a household accident leads to Homer's thumb being cut off, Marge and Homer race to the doctor's office to see family physicain Dr. Juilius Hibbert. The doc has some bad news...

Dr. Hibbert: "I'm sorry, Homer. Your HMO doesn't cover this type of injury."

Homer: "But I have finger insurance!"

Hibbert: "A thumb is not a finger!"

Marge: (protesting) "Isn't there anything you can do?"

Hibbert: (thinking) "Well, I could cut off the other thumb for a sense of symmetry."

One Dumb Idea That Thanksfully Looks Dead In The Water

Jonah Goldberg does a good job reflecting my opinion on the silly idea of moving Election Day as a result of Sandy's destruction...

Chuck Todd who knows vastly more about politics than I do, should recall that 9/11 did not delay the New York mayoral race. It delayed the primary — which was scheduled on 9/11. Sandy made landfall eight days before the election — and wasn’t an act of war. If 9/11 is the best precedent for moving the federal election day, there is no precedent for it. And there is none. Sure, some local elections have been delayed for this or that reason. But this country held elections during the Civil War! Even FDR who violated a near sacred tradition to run for a third term and fourth term, still ran for them.

This country is so bizarrely schizophrenic about voting it drives me crazy. We are constantly bathed in platitudes about how vital, wonderful, special, glorious and sacred voting is. But don’t you dare ask the American people to put the slightest bit of effort into the practice. It must be convenient. It must be easy. It must be on my timetable, like a DVR’d episode of “Nashville” or the “Price is Right.”

Agreed.  As Goldberg points out, individual states have the ability to choose electors on whatever day they choose, so an individual state could move the date if they so choose.  But there's no reason to push for any sort of national delay

What Annoying Song Is Stuck In My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

One of my favorite songs, from the Rolling Stones, was playing this morning as background music on a show I was watching.  Love this tune, love the lyrics.



You're welcome.

Marathon Stupidity

Well, here's one person in New York City who's making a dumber decision than Mike Bloomberg when he decided the marathion must go on, even if Staten Island still resembles something from a lower circle of hell. 

Then again, those marathoners better not try to use any salt on their pre-race pasta meals, or Bloomberg may come get them.

It Just Gets Worse

The Benghazi debacle gets worse by the day...

More than six weeks after the shocking assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi -- and nearly a month after an FBI team arrived to collect evidence about the attack - the battle-scarred, fire-damaged compound where Ambassador Chris Stevens and another Foreign Service officer lost their lives on Sept. 11 still holds sensitive documents and other relics of that traumatic final day, including drafts of two letters worrying that the compound was under "troubling" surveillance and complaining that the Libyan government failed to fulfill requests for additional security.

When we visited on Oct. 26 to prepare a story for Dubai based Al Aan TV, we found not only Stevens's personal copy of the Aug. 6 New Yorker, lying on remnants of the bed in the safe room where Stevens spent his final hours, but several ash-strewn documents beneath rubble in the looted Tactical Operations Center, one of the four main buildings of the partially destroyed compound. Some of the documents -- such as an email from Stevens to his political officer in Benghazi and a flight itinerary sent to Sean Smith, a U.S. diplomat slain in the attack -- are clearly marked as State Department correspondence. Others are unsigned printouts of messages to local and national Libyan authorities. The two unsigned draft letters are both dated Sept. 11 and express strong fears about the security situation at the compound on what would turn out to be a tragic day. They also indicate that Stevens and his team had officially requested additional security at the Benghazi compound for his visit -- and that they apparently did not feel it was being provided.

Add in the breaking news that the Administration failed to convene their top interagency terrorism taskforce, and we're now watching the cracks in the facade built by the Obama team and its sycophantic supporters in the mainstream media start to crack. Keep in mind that during the Bush years, the media obsessively pursued the silly claim that Valerie Plame's identity had been compromised to hell and back, creating the need for a special prosecutor who ultimately ended his investigation with one prosecution that had nothing to do with the alleged original crime. All of that involved a case where no one died. Put differently, if there had been this much actual evidence showing Bush and Cheney thought there were no WMD in Iraq, the media would have ferreted it out before Bush gave the "Mission Accomplished" speech.

Here, four American citizens died. Additional security was requested, repeatedly, and it was not provided, even though elements of al Qaeda-related groups were known to be operating in the city. When the compound was attacked, a force of CIA operatives was sent from Tripoli to try to help, but no other assets were dispatched, allegedly due to a lack of on-site intel, although at least one drone was in the area providing real-time surveillance, and we have video of the attack that was observed in real time.  No one sent help, and at least two additional deaths occurred more than 5 hours after the attack started.  And when it was over, the Obama Administration tried to spin this as an amateurish protest against a silly movie that escalated into random violence. Most of the media followed the party line, in order to keep the President's all-important re-election on track.

Based on the above,  I think we're forced to draw some conclusions.

1.  The President actually crapped the bed that night and was unable to make a "gutsy call." 

2.  Since this would run counter to the Democrats' political needs, they asked the media to ignore the story.

3.  The media by and large acceded to the Obama Administration requests.

I can't really blame Mitt Romney for choosing not to turn this into a campaign issue -- he's got an election to win, and this election is largely about the economy.  In addition, fighting the media's disinterest in the case is a full-time job, and his work has to be focused on winning the election, not beating the media.

But the media itself will answer for their shameful conduct on behalf of President Obama.  As for the President itself, a second term (if he gets one) may end up being an epic nightmare.  Most Presidential second terms are beset by scandal, but this one would be dealing with multiple scandals that pre-date the second term.  Let's not find out how low a Presidency can get.

Reason #4,379 I Don't Live In New Jersey

For a state that has approximately 6 trillion Democrats, it's amazing how New Jersey keeps finding the corrupt ones to be elected to major office...

Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.

In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000-acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.

...One woman said Menendez wooed her with compliments like “beautiful” before they slept together. The other woman recounted, with apparent bitterness, receiving from an intermediary only $100 of the $500 she had been promised.

“He lies,” she said of Menendez. “He says one thing and does another.”

That last line would be a great description of any number of politicians. But it's heartening to see a Democrat who believes in cutting spending, even if it's just his own personal spending on hookers.  And you have to give him credit for following the model set by the Secret Service.

Happy Halloween, from the Democratic Party!

Steven Crowder demonstrates how the President's tax ideas work for children on Halloween...



If I tried this with my five year old (dressed as Cinderella last night), the house might be destroyed this morning. Of course, she's already told her family that she supports Mitt Romney. You have to start turning them to the dark side early.

Refuting The Left-Wing Dishrag

Robert Samuelson eviscerates a silly editorial put forth by the New York Times...

Who creates most jobs? Hint: It’s not the government. Almost everyone seems to grasp that the private sector is the true jobs machine. But here’s a notable exception to the consensus: the editorial page of The New York Times. The other day, its lead editorial was “The Myth of Job Creation: The government does in fact create jobs, important jobs, millions of them.” In 35 years, I can’t recall ever writing a column refuting an editorial. But this one warrants special treatment because the Times’ argument is so simplistic, the subject is so important and the Times is such an influential institution.

...Government does create jobs, including “teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, sailors, astronauts, epidemiologists, antiterrorism agents, park rangers, diplomats. ...” There are 22 million federal, state and local workers, notes the Times.
Case closed, it asserts. And it’s true that, legally, government does expand employment. But economically, it doesn’t — and that’s what people usually mean when they say “government doesn’t create jobs.”

What the Times omits is the money to support all these government jobs. It must come from somewhere — generally, taxes or loans (bonds, bills). But if the people whose money is taken via taxation or borrowing had kept the money, they would have spent most or all of it on something — and that spending would have boosted employment.

Job creation in the private sector is mostly a spontaneous and circular process. People buy things they need and want. Or businesses and private investors take risks by investing in new products, technologies and factories. All this spending, driven by self-interest and the profit motive, supports more jobs. In a smoothly functioning market economy, the process feeds on itself. By contrast, public-sector employment grows only when government claims some private-sector income to pay its workers. Government is not creating jobs. It’s substituting public-sector workers for private-sector workers.

As the Times points out, even President Obama seems to disagree with them (at least, he says he does). It would seem to be strange that the Times editorial board would take such a silly position, until you realize that they seem to take a number of silly positions.

Simpsons Quote of the Day

Apropos for today -- one of the greatest quotes ever from a Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween special...

 

Homer goes shopping for Bart's birthday gift and ends up in a spooky store in Chinatown that sells strange objects... and frozen yogurt, which the owner calls Frogurt. The owner, a sinister old man, suggests a gift...

Owner: (holding out a Krusty the Klown doll) "Take this object... but beware it carries a terrible curse!"

Homer: (scared) "Ooooh, that's bad."

Owner: (smiles) "But it comes with a free Frogurt!"

Homer: (smiles) "That's good."

Owner: (scowling) "The Frogurt is also cursed."

Homer: (scared again) "That's bad."

Owner: (smiling again) "But you get your choice of topping!"

Homer: (relieved, smiling again) "That's good."

Owner: (scowling again) "The topping contains Potassium Benzoate." (Homer stares blankly at the owner, who grows impatient) "That's bad."

Homer: "Can I go now?"

Seriously?

Delia Lloyd seems to think Obama might be primed to win victory by playing off the archetype of being everyone's father.  I have any number of reasons why I'd take issue with this (seriously -- if anyone over the age of 35 sees Obama as a father figure type, they have issues), but this passage stood out as driving me nuts...

It’s evident in the way that he speaks to us. As I’ve watch the presidential debates with my own kids, I’ve been struck by how parental he sounds. Particularly in the third and final debate, where the president could barely mask his disdain for Mitt Romney’s less-than-up-to-date grasp of our military, many pundits – including my colleague, Melinda Henneberger – saw his tone as patronizing, and wondered whether it wouldn’t alienate undecided women voters in particular.

Patronizing? Perhaps. But isn’t that what parents do? They tell us what’s good for us in an “eat your spinach” sort of way and get exasperated, at times, when we just don’t “get it.” And the most annoying part of that schtick, as we all know, is that they’re often right.

I did not watch the debates with my kids, mostly because both were in bed and are far too young to care.  And I can't tell anyone whether or not this had an adverse impact with women voters, but as a father myself, I don't see anything resembling paternal responsibility in Barack Obama's Presidency, assuming we want to carry forward the silly analogy of putting Obama in the position of father figure.  

You have to be a complete idiot to believe that Obama is the one prescribing tough love and medicine on his "kids", a.k.a. the American electorate.  Entitlement reform?  Eh, we'll get to that eventually.  And yes, we'll make your richie rich older brother eat his spinach (pay taxes), but you'll get to eat less spinach, and I'll even throw in some free candy for you! And yes, we seem to be underwater on the mortgage, but that's the fault of mom's ex-boyfriend who moved out four years ago; yes, I took out a second and third mortgage and ran up the credit cards, but it's still his fault!

Bottom line, Barack Obama seems to be a pretty good father to his daughters.  But he's a pretty crappy President for the other 300 million of us.  They can't fire him and probably shouldn't; we can, and hopefully will, next week.

What Annoying Song Is Stuck In My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

I'm wondering if it may be worthwhile to start a new run of these posts, based around the concept of music that I'm still fond of for no discernible reason, largely culled from my high school years.  I'm pretty sure this song would be a great example. 



You're welcome.

Stop Baseball Evil -- Vote Republican

An old post by the Baseball Crank reminds me of something very important: the New York Yankees have not won a World Series since 1958 when a Republican was in the White House, while winning at least one World Series under the eye of every Democrat since 1921 save LBJ.  Even more important, this means I can blame Obama for the Phillies World Series loss to the Bronx Bombers in 2009.  For all of George W. Bush's faults, his eight years in office stopped the Yankee run from the late 1990's... until the arrival of Obama brought another title to the Bronx.

Bottom line: if we want to eliminate the chances of a Yankee World Series victory, we're much better off with Mitt Romney than Obama.

Swing State Madness in the Midwest

I had a major Obama supporter tell me last week that the President was raising the alarm to make sure they got their people to the polls, but that they were still confident in the Midwest firewall, starting with Ohio, but continuing through Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin.  Maybe that's what they're telling their supporters, but the specifics sound a little too close for comfort, so much so that the campaign seems to be denying that they may be on the ropes...

The Democratic mayor of Denver said Sunday that President Obama could lose the battleground state of Wisconsin if the incumbent’s supporters fail to increase early voter turnout in the Badger State.  

“If the election was held today, President Barack Obama would lose the state of Wisconsin because where his base is, we have not turned out the vote early," Mayor Michael Hancock told a Democratic rally. "The suburbs and rural parts of Wisconsin – the Republican base – are voting. President Obama’s base has yet to go vote.  

...Hancock was in Wisconsin to stump for Obama, but the Obama campaign said their surrogates portrayal of where the race stands doesn't match the early voting statistics they've seen.  

“We are very grateful that Mayor Hancock came and did what we need to do, which is keep people enthused. He is absolutely right that we have to get our base out,” Joe Zepecki, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign in Wisconsin, said. “But the numbers we are seeing do not back up his assessment that our base is not turning out.”

That doesn't sound like the typical, "We need to get the base out" talk. More to the point, if Wisconsin really is this close, and the reports on Minnesota being tight are true, then I can't imagine Ohio being anything other than total tossup.

Should be an interesting last week in the heartland.

NYC Devastation

The pictures out of New York City are surreal.




And check out the East Village.  Just incredible.  Brendan Loy, a.k.a. the Weather Nerd, is ripping Mayor Bloomberg to shreds on Twitter, and I think he has a pretty good case.

Bloomberg's "less dangerous" non-"sudden surge" was every bit as ignorant junk science as Akin's comment, & far more consequential. #resign
— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012

I doubt Bloomberg resigns, but Loy is right on that he's done an awful job.   At the very least, he really should start taking lessons in crisis management from Chris Christie.

Random Things That Annoy Me

Because life is full of annoying crap, and this is my place to complain about it.

I'm expecting to have a whole slew of weather-related stuff at some point on this topic, but that will be better at another time.  For now, as the father of a one-year old, I want someone to explain why some baby clothes opt to increasde the level of difficulty in dressing one's children by adding about twenty buttons as enclosures, because little kids will obviously sit still while you get those buttoned.  Better yet, I'm pretty sure the price goes up based on the number of buttons.

One More Reason I'm Voting For Romney -- His Ads Are Not This Creepy and Stupid

This might be the most embarassing campaign ad ever.



In case you're wondering, it is indeed an Obama support tool, and I use tool in the broadest way possible. As Allahpundit observed, the kids don't look too thrilled; the looks on their faces remind me of what my five year old looks like when I tell her she has to eat her vegetables. What's more, as a parent, I'm not sure how this video would motivate me to vote for Obama -- my kids already blame me for any number of things, but most of the time that's a result of immaturity.  I'm half-tempted to vote for Romney just to spite them.  And if the grownup version of my children are stupid enough to parrot they lyrics to this song someday, I will have done a lousy job as a parent, and that would be a more relevant reason to yell at me.

By the way, when the kids in the video look back on this someday, do you think they'll be wondering why their parents would let them do something that dumb?

What Annoying Song Is Stuck In My Head Today?

If I need to suffer with a song stuck in my head, why shouldn't you have to do the same? Sometimes they're good, most times they're bad... but no matter what, they make you suffer. So I like to share the suffering whenever it happens.

Give Maroon 5 credit -- Mick Jagger's moves are weird enough that they are worthy of a song.  And the song is as memorable/annoying as Mick's moves.



You're welcome.

It Begins

Remember, America -- just because you voted for Barack Obama in 2008, that doesn't not make you a racist if you vote against him in 2012 (double negative intended)...

During this Sunday’s edition of ABC’s This Week, Daily Beast writer Andrew Sullivan claimed that if Republican nominee Mitt Romney wins back Florida and Virginia in the upcoming 2012 presidential election, especially due to the white vote, then the South’s electoral map will look exactly like the pro-slavery United States Confederacy during the Civil War.  

This observation came in response to host George Stephanopoulos noting that the latest polls show that six out of ten white Americans intend to vote for Romney.  

PBS reporter Gwen Ifill said that “we can’t ignore” the possible factor racial animus may play in deciding the election, noting that the poll indicates that, on some level, people are still willing to admit “racial bias.”  

Sullivan then added: “If Virginia and Florida go back to the Republicans, it’s the Confederacy. Entirely. You put a map of the Civil War over this electoral map, you’ve got the Civil War.”  

Conservative panelist George Will rolled his eyes. “I don’t know,” said a skeptical Ifill.

George Will is being too nice. Sullivan is, to put it charitably, full of shit. There's a nice map here, which may shock Sullivan, who seems to think that Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, and Kansas (all nearly certain to go to Romney) were part of the Confederacy (and that's before we get to areas that were not yet admitted as states). I'm also assuming Sully doesn't consider Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire or other swing states north of the Mason-Dixon Line to be part of the Confederacy if they vote for Romney, but maybe he lives in some alternate universe where the Civil War was very different (Lincoln was probably a Democrat in that telling).

I'm not even going to comment on the sad attempt to equate Southern disdain for big-government politics with racism. It's sad, but it's telling. Racism isn't the reason Barack Obama may lose, incompetence is. But crying racism will allow his supporters to ignore the truth.

"Nobody Died In Watergate"

Some are bound to say this is needless hyperbole by Sen. McCain for election season.  But let's hear him out...

Sen. John McCain issued one of the harshest critiques of the White House response to the September attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, saying it “exposed the failures” of President Obama’s foreign policy.

...McCain said that the worst part of the response to Libya were the “gross, gross, outrageous statements” made by officials, including the president, after the attack. And he went as far as to compare it to Watergate. “Somebody the other day said to me, ‘this is as bad as Watergate,’” McCain said. “Nobody died in Watergate.”

The Libya issue is officially a mess at this point, with the latest reports effectively leaving the President running away from providing details while the CIA looks like it's going to toss the President under the bus in response to being the potential scapegoat. A few thoughts:

1. Let's not forget that four Americans died here serving their country, and that at least two of them (the Seals, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods) appear to have done so after rushing to help others. Their sacrifice should not be forgotten as people strive to make political points.

2. At the same time, their sacrifice should not be forgotten as people try to avoid culpability for their mistakes. Woods, Doherty, Sean Smith, and Ambassador Chris Stevens presumably did not serve their country because they saw it as a perfect nation; they probably knew that people within their chain of command might make mistakes, and that such errors might even cost them their lives. But it's beyond a disgrace to lie about those errors or cover them up.

3. I'm not sure why you cover this up, or lie about this so blatantly. In Watergate, the coverup involved an actual crime. In this case, the decisions made by people in the command chain may be negligent, and may well have been made for reasons of political expedience. But they're not criminal. And if you can't handle the heat of making such decisions, go find another job.

4. The mainstream media's handling of this story has been disgraceful. But the good news is that they are only accelerating their march to irrelevance.  And before people talk about waiting for all the facts to come in, it's the media's job to ferret out those facts.  Some have done so, with great professional integrity.  It's too bad they share a profession with so many transparently biased hacks.

Simpsons Quote of the Day

It's election season, so here's some world-class pandering for votes to inspire candidates everywhere.  Springfield Elementary's school band loses to Ogdenville in the state band competition, but Lisa is peeved because the Ogdenville band used red-white-and-blue glow sticks to sway the judges, which violated the rule against visual aids. when no one listens to her complaints, Lisa writes to then-President Clinton... who shows up on the family's doorstep...

 

Marge: "President Clinton?"

 

Clinton: "Yeah. Hi. I'm here to see Lisa Simpson."

 

Lisa: (in shock) "You read my letter?"

 

Clinton: "Much of it, yeah. And those glow sticks were wrong, very wrong, so I personally overturned the results of that band contest. Congratulations." (Clinton hands Lisa a plaque)

 

Lisa: (in delighted surprise) "Thank you, Mr. President."

 

Clinton: "No, thank you, Lisa, for teaching kids everywhere a valuable lesson: If things don't go your way, just keep complaining until your dreams come true."

 

Marge: "That's a pretty lousy lesson."

 

Clinton: "Hey, I'm a pretty lousy president."

Don't Bring That Crap to New Orleans

Wait, Madonna's still relevant?

Madonna drew boos and triggered a walkout by several concertgoers after she touted President Barack Obama on her "MDNA Tour" in New Orleans.  

The Material Girl asked during Saturday night's performance: "Who's registered to vote?" She added: "I don't care who you vote for as long as you vote for Obama." Drawing boos in touting Obama over Republican Mitt Romney, Madonna followed: "Seriously, I don't care who you vote for ... Do not take this privilege for granted. Go vote."

I'm guessing she forgot that she was in Louisiana when she recommended a vote for President Obama.