Joe the Secretary of State: "A Vote For Obama Is A Vote For The Death Of Israel"

No longer content merely to serve as the McCain campaign's chief economic advisor, Samuel Wurzelbacher a/k/a "Joe the (unlicensed, non-union) Plumber" has decided to take on the additional role of McCain's chief foreign policy advisor, based on his extensive experience in the field of unclogging toilets without a license.

Speaking at a McCain rally in Columbus "real America" Ohio yesterday, Joe the Foreign Policy Expert responded to a statement from a McCain supporter in the crowd. The McCain supporter, according to Joe, is "Middle America."

McCain Supporter: "A vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel! I'll guarantee you that!"

Joe the Foreign Policy Expert: "Actually, uh, I'll go ahead and agree with you on that. You know, well, I agree with you. I really think that would be a problem."

Apparently, this was the final straw for Fox News' Shepard Smith, who not only repeatedly questioned Joe's totally baseless and ignorant opinion, but was moved to issue a disclaimer following his interview with Wurzelbacher.

"I just want to make this 100 percent perfectly clear -- Barack Obama has said repeatedly and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States, no matter what happens once he becomes President of the United States. His words. The rest of it -- man...some things -- it just gets frightening sometimes. We'll be right back."

The full interview is worth a watch, if you want to experience stunned disbelief that a guy who literally would not be allowed by law to snake your sink in most states is now acting as McCain's chief economic and foreign policy messenger, and also if you are at all interested in your head literally exploding. Watch the interview here.

Missing Links For October 25, 2008

A succinct, lucid explanation of competing health care plans.

President Bush votes early for Barack Obama?!?!? Psyche!

Captain Krauthammer and the euphoria before drowning: I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

Obama defends his alleged ties to . . . Adolph Hitler: "Um . . . just so we're clear: I was negative 20 years old when Hitler committed despicable acts."

After conjuring Herbert Hoover, McCain revives Harry S. Truman, reminds the electorate he's stupid-old.

When you think about John McCain, think about George Bush

Last night, one of the most important, influential voices in American politics finally released an endorsement for president. No, I'm not talking about the New York Times' endorsement of Sen. Obama released late last night. Nor am I talking about Pres. Bush's former Press Secretary Scott McClellan endorsing Obama on D.L. Hughley's show on CNN. But that does raise an interesting question: D.L. HUGHLEY HAS A SHOW ON CNN??? How does that sentence not end with "on the WB?" But no, I'm talking about President George Walker Bush, who finally came out to fully embrace the candidacy of Sen. John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin.

In complimenting Gov. Palin's amazing folksy appeal, Pres. Bush explained that "for a while I tried to be folksy, but after a bit it just came off douchey."

From "The Club Of Disaffection" Into The Light

Jonathan Martin of Politico reports:

John Dowd, Cindy McCain's attorney, complained in a letter to New York Times editor Bill Keller earlier this month that the paper had scrutinized the GOP nominee's wife but not investigated matters surrounding Barack Obama including his youthful drug use."You have not tried to find Barack Obama's drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father," Dowd wrote in a two-page letter sent to Keller while the paper was reporting a piece about Cindy McCain.

The McCain campaign released the missive late Friday night in response to that story, to be published in the paper's Saturday edition. It's the first time anybody so closely associated with McCain has raised the issue. Continuing the campaign's drumbeat of criticism against the Times, Dowd wrote on October 1st that the paper was not covering the two candidates equally.

In addition to the reference to Obama's "drug dealer," Dowd notes that the Times also has not "interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them."

At age 33, Barack Obama took a year off after law school to pen Dreams of My Father, a personal memoir about his pedigree as son of a black African father and a white American mother. With stark openness, Obama concedes the underpinnings of a shiftless youth and experimentation with drugs:

"I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though . . ."

Obama couched his normal transience through teenage trial-and-error in terms of race and insecurity:

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man . . . Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."

Obama also stated the leisurely use of drugs as an adolescent was a product of stereotypes (trying to be a "tough young man") and regretful ("The choices were misguided. A serious mistake").

When confronted about his erstwhile flirtation with drugs while campaigning for the United States Senate in 2003, Obama responded that it had been 20 years since his last dalliance with illegal substances.

McCain-Palin incessantly ask "who is Barack Obama?" Perhaps they should read books instead of removing them from libraries (sorry - I meant instead of generally hypothesizing with the public librarian about the potential responses to a fictitious mandate speculatively handed down to remove books for argument's sake. You know, just playing devil's advocate). Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope contain 403 and 375 pages respectively. That might be a good jumping-off point to get to know him.

Has there ever been a more vetted, battle-tested candidate in the history of elections than Barack Obama? After almost two years of the most insufferable campaigning, he continues to succeed.

And the remarkable thing is he is not a Teflon candidate: Everything they throw at him sticks. People just don't give a damn.

ACORN: Ghost Stories for GOP Kiddies. Boooo!

To have standing to sue an individual and bring them into the court room, you, the plaintiff, must present an injury. Without injury, without a showing of damages or a theory of damages, the court has better things to do then adjudicate a case where the plaintiff is not entitled to relief.

The RNC is such a plaintiff when it comes to the ACORN pseudo-scandal. The chimeras of conservative moppets' nightmares - eg., a leftist Mickey Mouse primed to vote Obama - currently reside where they should remain: in dreams.

In the words of Barack Obama, "um . . . so . . . just to be clear" voter registration fraud does not bear fruits of voter fraud on November 4. As such, the Republicans cannot show injury. They cannot show damages.

Case closed . . . but of course it's not - since you hardened, righty, Kool-Aid chugging prick masters cannot stop pushing this lark or generally shut your pie holes. Sigh, let's play it out once again.

We revisit Disney and Mickey Mouse's indefatigable quest to vote for Obama: So the registration card filled out by "Mickey Mouse" is handed to representatives at ACORN from the ACORN canvasser (ie., by the way, just for a visual, Micky is a filthy hobo who stinks of Jack Daniels and rides the rails out past Toledo and is approached by an ACORN canvasser/pederast/check-kiter paid as an independent contractor based on the number of cards she submits. Make them black too, Neocons. Make it terrifying.).

If the card is suspicious, it is segregated from the stack of patently valid registration cards. Sometimes, the representative misses a suspicious card because she is working quickly, or is snorting Colombian bam-bam, or absolutely loves Obama. It really doesn't matter - for both the suspicious pile and verified pile are sent to the Election Board for review.

Why? BECAUSE IT'S THE LAW! ACORN is required to submit all registration cards it collects and stamps with its seal. Why? So that the Election Board can keep tabs on voter drives, provide ethical standards and confirm that the voting rolls are in order with the registration cards.

But Warm Apple Pie - what if the Board lets a suspicious card slip through and Mickey Mouse becomes listed on the voter rolls. Oh my god, does fraud win? Republican children huddle close! Fraud!!!! Boooooooooo!!!!!!

Um, no. Though Mickey Mouse is now registered to vote, there is no Mickey Mouse (sorry kids - there's no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny either. However, hobgoblin Dick Cheney is very real and will spray you with buckshot from his spectral shotgun if you don't pray for the destruction of Iran each evening).

Wait! What about the filthy hobo who filled out the card? He may try to vote as Mickey. Presto! Voter fraud. Fraud, GOP children. Fraud!!!!! Boooooooooooooooooo!

Um, no. The filthy hobo, Mickey Mouse, even Sarah Palin cannot vote without presenting a valid form of identification to the election monitor for authentication before signing the voter roll and before entering the voting booth. Why? BECAUSE IT'S THE LAW.

Okay, okay Warm Apple Pie. But playing along with me just to . . . GOP children? What are you doing? . . . oh my god . . . where did you get that Obama placard . . . stop waiving it . . . there is no change we can believe in . . . sit down children . . . Trig, you too - why are you watching the Couric interview again . . . behave!

Er, so play along with me. Let's say all of these fail safes . . . well . . . fail and the filthy hobo eludes detection and gets into the voting booth. I mean humans are fallible and at least half of the monitors are human (the other half are Democrats). I'm sure a ton of fraudulent votes are cast by misanthropes each election. Countless. Probably hundreds of thousands of these miscreants trolling the election sites. Maybe a million. Who knows?

Twenty. From 2002 to 2005 only 20 people were determined guilty of ineligible voting (and only five of these twenty were found to have voted more than once).

Sleep easy, GOP children. May visions of tax credits for sugar plum purchases dance in your heads.

* * * * *

ACORN is pure Republican hokum used solely to work the base into a heaving swell of stupidity and enlarge the ever-growing gaggle of phantasmal boogiemen conjured up by McCain-Palin this Fall. Maybe it's meant to simply hurt my ears.

It's viable for eighteen more days, as is the right-wing cacophony.

Truuuuuuue, but...

I like this ad a lot. Sure, it's sort of simplistic, but it uses the always classic approach of making the other guy paint himself as a dumbass with his own words. It's like that game you used to play with your little brother where you grab his arm and make him hit himself in the face over and over, all while asking him "why are you hitting yourself? Why do you keep hitting yourself?" Then your father comes in to the room in a drunken rage and beats you with his belt and when you start crying angrily slurs "I'll give you something to cry about." Actually, the new ad isn't much like that at all, but it reminds me that this Sunday is visiting day at Sing Sing.