It’s A Bong! John McCain’s Man Helps Out Barack Obama

It’s A Bong! John McCain’s Man Helps Out Barack Obama

May 25th

THE US Presidential race is getting intesting.

Barack Obama says:

"This country is united in our support for our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else's civil war. Governor Romney and Senator McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not.

"And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago.

"Governor Romney and Senator McCain are still supporting a war that has cost us thousands of lives, made us less safe in the world, and resulted in a resurgence of al-Qaeda. It is time to end this war so that we can redeploy our forces to focus on the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and all those who plan to do us harm."

Says war hero John McCain:

"While Senator Obama's two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security."

And:

"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."

Ooooo...Get her.

And now a McCain aide floats in:

"Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."

RPG? Rocket Propelled Grenade? Or a new kind of weed?

Mitt Romney Owns It by Chris Kelly

Mitt Romney Owns It by Chris Kelly

"Mitt made the final decision last Christmas after discussing it with Ann, their five sons, and their five wives." - Newsmax 5/23/07. Ronald Kessler says more about the Romney family than he probably should.

Mitt Romney is raising more money than all the other Republican candidates. He's also leading in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire.

When the dust settles, and the candidates with anger management issues and/or cancer fall away, Mitt Romney will be the nominee, and I think I know why: Because Mitt Romney is the first candidate to take pandering so far beyond cynicism that it's not even cynicism anymore. It's Romantic Irony.

Romantic irony -- the most wistful irony of all -- occurs when a character draws attention to the fact that he's just a character, or a narrator interrupts a story to remind the audience that it's just a story. And Mitt Romney -- alone among presidential hopefuls -- understands that he's a character in a work of art and that his character's job is to say anything, to anyone, at any time, to get elected.

There aren't any contradictions, because life is all made up anyway. He only appears to be a compulsive liar. Actually, he's capturing what Friedrich Schlegel called the "clear consciousness of eternal agility, of an infinitely teeming chaos."

Yes, he seems like the oily trimmer in the mind of God. (Romney, not Schlegel.) But that's the whole point. He knows the mind of God is the only place where we exist. (Or, as Paul McCartney would put it, though we feel as if we're in a play, we are anyway.) Mitt Romney understands that in fiction, there's no such thing as "true" and "false." A character's only truth is internal consistency.

If you think it's inconsistent for him to change sides all the time, you're missing the point. When he had to be pro-choice to get elected, he was pro-choice. When he had to be pro-life, he was pro-life. When he had to support civil rights for gays and lesbians, he did. Now that he doesn't, he doesn't. Guns? Campaign finance reform? Immigration? Tax cuts? Abortion? He's been as dependable as an atomic clock: He's changed his mind on everything.

Mitt Romney is totally consistent as a character. He's a perfect, tidal-in-its-relentlessness, rockin' round the clock, 24/7, nonstop sleaze.

When you employ romantic irony in television, it's called "owning it." This happens when a situation is so sit-commy, the characters themselves have to notice. This occurs mostly in your cool, post-modern-type sit coms. It's a way for the writers to make themselves feel better, and suck up to the audience while serving them the same old crap.

Here's a bad, tired sit-com, the kind Entertainment Weekly hates:

"Oh my God! Not only do I have jury duty the day of the big game, but the foreman is Urkel!"

Here's a great, deconstructed, meta-sitcom, the kind Entertainment Weekly loves:

"Oh my God! Not only do I have jury duty the day of the big game, but the foreman is Urkel! I feel like I'm in a sit-com!"

See how easy it is, once you know how?

Daytime dramas have been employing romantic irony for decades, but only in dialogue, in the form of incredulous sarcasm. The characters have achieved a certain level of self-awareness, but it hasn't made them happy. It just makes their predicaments all the more galling. Of course Windsor is having an affair with Wedge - that what makes it sting. Scenes are an escalating series rhetorical questions, built out of sarcastic clichés.

TIMBER
So, that's your "brilliant plan?" I'm supposed to "stand aside" while you and Wedge "waltz away" to your little "love nest" like some "match made in heaven?"

WINDSOR
"Grow up," Timber. Did you "honestly think" Wedge was your "knight in shining armor" when he "swept you away" and made you his "blushing bride?"

This rule, of course, does not apply to one true jewel of daytime, The Bold and the Beautiful. Which is perfect, except for Phoebe and Rick- why can't she see through him?

On primetime dramas - sophisticated primetime dramas -- the characters use romantic irony by saying "this is the part" to each other.

GARY
(A woman, by the way, all attractive women on sophisticated hours have men's names.)
Hey, Doyle, can I talk to you about this assignment?

DOYLE
(Her editor. Men on sophisticated hours go by their last names, even if they're in high school.)
I don't have time for this, Gary. This is the part where you say you don't want to work with McGillicuddy and this is the part where I say you have to. And this is the part where you say is that an order and this is the part where I say yes.

See how not sh__ty that is?

The quality of a television show is in direct inverse proportion to the number of times a character says: "This is the part..."

I want Mitt Romney to start answering questions: "This is the part where I tell you what you want to hear." It's a long time until next November. It could happen.

Giuliani, Obama win picnic poll

Giuliani, Obama win picnic poll

Associated Press - May 25, 2007 2:23 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AP) - A new poll says Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama would be the most welcome among the presidential candidates at a Memorial Day picnic.

People were asked which candidate they'd most like to chat with at a picnic.

In the Quinnipiac poll, the former New York City mayor was picked by 37% of all those polled when pitted against three other Republicans.

Obama was chosen by 33% when grouped with three other Democrats.

John McCain was second among Republicans with 27%, while Hillary Rodham Clinton was second among Democrats at 24%.

Hillary camp embarrassed after 'ignore Iowa' memo is leaked

Hillary camp embarrassed after 'ignore Iowa' memo is leaked

Friday, May 25, 2007

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

Hillary Clinton's super-organised, impeccably on-message campaign for the White House has suffered a first embarrassment with the leak of an internal memo that urges her to skip the key early caucuses in Iowa - on the ground she has better places to spend money than on a contest she may well lose.

Yesterday, Clinton aides were playing down the memo as the unsolicited musings of a minion, which had never been seen by the lady herself and her most senior advisers. They insisted she would make a major effort in Iowa, whose caucuses - set for 14 January next year - traditionally kick off the primary season.


"It's not the opinion of the campaign," Ms Clinton herself said in response to a question about the memo, and "It's not my opinion."


In fact, the document, entitled An Alternative Nomination Strategy, was written by her deputy campaign manager Mike Henry. At the very least, analysts say, it reflects divisions within the camp of the 2008 Democratic front-runner, as well as the new problems thrown up by the tightly bunched primary calendar.


Iowa's role in the nominating process has usually been pivotal - 13 out of the 14 most recent major party nominees won either there or in New Hampshire, the first primary state (the exception being Bill Clinton in 1992). But its traditionally liberal, anti-war Democratic electorate is not friendly territory for Ms Clinton, who still refuses to disown her 2002 vote authorising the Iraq invasion.


John Edwards, the 2004 vice-presidential nominee who has turned resolutely anti-war, leads in most Iowa polls. He is followed by Barack Obama, who opposed the war from before its outset.


But the question is, is Iowa, or for that matter New Hampshire, really that important any longer? "I think the old system [giving such importance to these two states] is about to collapse, and it will happen this year," Mr Henry wrote, pointing to the compression of the calendar and the emergence of what is in effect a "national primary" on 5 February.


On that date, California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois are among 20 states holding primaries. Florida, the fourth largest state in terms of delegates to the nominating convention in Denver, has gone further still, pushing its primary to 29 January. The bunching has forced every candidate to rethink their strategy. The development "forces us to reassess... where our time and money are best spent," the memo reads.


The front-loading means both party nominations could be, in effect, settled in February, leaving a six-month gap before the conventions.


Fiercely proud of their "first in the nation" status, Iowa and New Hampshire have said they will move their votes forward as far as necessary, to preserve their importance.

Tax cut for light bulbs? Great Idea!

Tax cut for light bulbs?

Two conservative Utah House members want to give every Utah family $30 in a tax cut to purchase long-lasting light bulbs.

Reps. Carl Wimmer, R-Heriman, and Greg Hughes, R-Draper, say the $21 million cost of their energy-saving program will cut more than $200 million in electrical costs, which in turn will mean more money for state tax coffers.

This is "an innovative way to cut taxes and energy usage and improve air quality," the pair said in a press release Friday.

They've nick-named their program "A Bright Idea for Utah." The pair will introduce the $30 tax cut in the 2008 Legislature, which convenes in January.

You couldn't spend the $30 on just anything. The $30 would be a voucher, and you could only use the voucher to buy energy-saving fluorescent gas bulbs, which use less electricity and last longer than the old light bulbs which burn a small fiber to make light.

The new bulbs, the men say, use 75 percent less energy and one of them can last the life of 10 old bulbs.

While the new program may seem costly to some — $21 million — the state is actually running tax surpluses of hundreds of millions of dollars this year. And lawmakers gave a $200 million tax cut in the 2007 Legislature.

In short, the state can afford this new, one-time energy-saving program, the two legislators said. The average family would save $285 a year — $255 in energy savings and $30 in the tax cut. The electrical savings equals 65 million gallons of gasoline, the pair claim, or getting 433,000 cars off of Utah roads for a year in reduced green-house gasses.

Other western states may join in this effort, they said. And if all 50 state legislatures did the same thing, it would save $40 billion in energy, equal to taking every car, bus and truck off of America's roads for 26 days, the legislators said.