Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Miriam Makeba dies after collapsing on stage – CNN.com.

Wow. It’s so weird, just a little while ago I was playing Pata Pata in iTunes, and now I see this headline on CNN. 🙁

The No on 8 campaign received a letter from the Yes on 8 campaign requesting that they engage in a debate over whether Prop 8’s failure would lead to kids being “indoctrinated in schools.” In other words, the Yes on 8 campaign asked for No on 8 to show up for a debate in order to legitimize their lies by making them sound like something actually up for debate. They might as well have asked No on 8 to come to a debate about whether gay people are child-molesters – we all know that’s what they are really thinking.

The No on 8 people refused to take the bait:

SENT VIA EMAIL AND COURIER
October 28, 2008
Frank Schubert
Campaign Manager, protectmarriage.com – Yes on 8
1415 L Street, Suite C-259
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Frank:

Thank you for your letter. It would be a disservice to the people of California to debate an issue
that is completely unrelated to Proposition 8.

As you know:

Jack O’Connell, the state’s top educator and the nonpartisan-elected Superintendent of Public
Instruction says Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools and that your campaign’s use of children
to make this false claim is “shameful.”

Delaine Eastin, his predecessor, says Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools.

Dr. Ted Mitchell, the President of the State Board of Education, says Prop. 8 has nothing to do
with schools.

His predecessor, Reed Hastings, says Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools.

The California Teachers Association says Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools.

And leading newspapers have concluded Prop. 8 has nothing to do with schools.

The only debate worth having in California is why you have pursued such a deceptive campaign
strategy.

That debate is one you can conduct alone – with your conscience.

Cordially,
Steve Smith
Campaign Manager
NO on Prop 8

I love it!

YouTube – Ain’t Funny – Vice President. Vote Obama-Biden..

…and boy, did they let her off easy. They didn’t give her a chance to wow America with her superior script-reading, word-parroting skillz, but they also didn’t really give her room to mess it up for herself. They pretty much wrote her a few snarky lines, and let her off the hook. Frankly, I’m kind of disappointed. I would have loved to see her trying to do improv or something.

Tina Fey, though, was hilarious, as usual. “The real one? Byee!” I wonder if they talked after the show, because onstage they barely made eye contact.

Okay… I SUCK at geography, but even I know that you can’t really go much farther east than New Hampshire unless you want to wind up in a) the Atlantic Ocean, or b) Canada. (Or okay, Maine or Vermont – but I had to consult a map for that one). But seriously, folks… North WEST? SERIOUSLY?

Wow. At least the people in New Hampshire actually
reacted to her gaffe, unlike those who just let McCain go on and on about sharing his plans with “my fellow prisoners.”

Wow… seriously?

YouTube – SNL: The REAL Sarah Palin.

Watch it while ya can, ’cause you know it won’t be up long! She wasn’t awful, but then again, she had a script. I still say Tina Fey is way, way hotter – and more intelligent, and better in unscripted moments…

YouTube – No on 8 PSA: FAMILY Molly Ringwald.

AWESOME. Send to everybody you know. There is SO MUCH MORE we could be worried about right now. I saw that one couple sacrificed all their vacations for the next couple of years so they could donate $35,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign. Holy crap. Do you know how many LIVES you could have saved with that money? And you wasted it on Prop 8? It’s like being granted a wish, any wish in the world, and wasting it on designer jeans or a cute purebred puppy. If you want to make sacrifices for the greater good, make it mean something. Like our Yom Kippur prayer book said, “Always look after your own soul and another’s body, not another’s soul and your own body.”

YouTube – No on 8 PSA: NO vs YES

Oh. My. Gosh. Everybody in America needs to take eleven minutes out of their crazy schedules and watch this commentary about Sarah Palin. Every last bit of it is pure truth, and scary as all hell. I’m only sorry it’s on MSNBC and not on network television, where more people could see it.

If you’re even THINKING about voting for a ticket with Sarah Palin on it, you need to see this video. He has her so spot on – he’s raised so many questions that have been floating out there about her – for example, if Obama has been “pallin’ around” with terrorists (i.e. former anti-Vietnam war radicals who have reformed themselves and now work toward improving Chicago’s school system), then what does Palin have to say about her affiliation with the Alaskan Independence Party, founded by a man who by his own admission hates America? Who literally said he hates America and refuses to be buried under her flag? And what of her relationship with the pastor who “laid hands” on her and cast away any forms of witchcraft which might be getting in her way of becoming governor? (and who, I might add, threw in some lines in there about letting Palin bring the nation to god…) You’ll have to watch this video to find out his sordid past – which the people in the Wasilla church thought was just fab, by george!

Tina Fey As Sarah Palin In VP Debate On SNL – October 4!.

This pretty much speaks for itself:

Is this really what you want as your next Vice President? Doesn’t the White House deserve more respect and seriousness? Honestly. This was around the same time (1984) that Barack Obama was working for the New York Public Interest Research Group and then doing some of his “community organizing” in Chicago – in clothes, not in swimming trunks.

The gist of this interview with McCain: “Hey LGBT Americans! Vote against your interests: McCain Palin ’08! p.s. we still hate you, but we’ll never admit it – at least not before the election! State’s rights, state’s rights, state’s rights.”

My favorite:

McCain: As a Republican, I am a strong advocate for federalism. States should be able to decide as many issues as possible. That’s certainly the case on the definition of marriage. My home state of Arizona shouldn’t be compelled to recognize a marriage from California or Massachusetts. Those states can decide that issue by themselves.

Hey McTwoface: Are you also in favor of the CONSTITUTION? For example, the part where states have to give FULL FAITH AND CREDIT to the “public acts, records, and judicial rulings” of another state? THAT INCLUDES MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

I laughed SO HARD when I watched the SNL sketch, largely because once Tina-Sarah started talking, I recognized that a HUGE portion of what she was saying was a nearly-verbatim recreation of Palin’s actual interview answers, especially once they got into the substance of it.

YouTube – CNN Laughs It Up Over Sarah Palin Interview.

Did John McCain call Barack Obama’s argument horseshit on national television? My friend sent me this video and although I didn’t notice it during the actual debate, now that I listen again, it sure sounds like it!

You decide!

A graduate of Wasilla High School comments on lack of sex education:

Abstinence-only education is great in theory, but it is not practical. For every emergency drill I went through to protect myself from an intruder or bomb threat, I think of the condom wrapped in foil and how unprotected I could have been. (Read more)

I was watching that last video and after seeing the montage of “Charlie” this and “Charlie” that, I thought it would be hilarious if somebody made some sort of parody using the Charlie the Unicorn cartoon. Well, apparently somebody beat me to it – take a look!

Sarah Palin’s Interview: It’s just over this bridge, Charlie!.

YouTube – Facts: Sarah Palin is Stupid.

My favorites:

“I can see right into the headquarters of Chase Bank from my office, so on the Sarah Palin scale, that makes me Alan Greenspan…”

“Gibson asked, ‘Have you ever given any kind of command decision to the Alaskan National Guard?’ Palin answered, ‘We have called up National Guardsmen to help in other states who have gone in emergency status. We have assisted there.’ False. Governor Palin has never issued an order to the Alaskan National Guard. Know what else she has not done to our knowledge? Properly pronounced the word ‘nuclear.'”

OH DEAR GOD. She’s a “nukular” girl! Bloody hell. I hadn’t realized until watching this video. This is pure treasure, I swear. You need to watch it.

YouTube – Jack Cafferty slams Sarah Palin!. Visit Cafferty’s blog entry for a transcript. Spend a couple of minutes reading people’s comments on this entry – thankfully most of them are intelligent comments, but there are a few that are just completely off the wall.

But bear in mind… she may just be working hard to lower expectations before the debate, so that if she just gets through without fucking up, people will say she won.

Wow. John McCain’s campaign has been putting out some pretty desperate ads, but this one just takes the cake.

This ad pretty much crystallizes one of the key differences between Republican and Democratic thinking, at least in the present climate of divisive politics. Democrats – or at least, the kind of Democrats who support Obama – recognize that for any given issue, there is a black, and there is a white, but there are also countless shades of gray, and typically the truth falls somewhere in that ambiguous area. Not always, of course, but when it comes to certain issues, you cannot simply boil it down to a Right and a Wrong. After all, as they say in “Wicked,” “There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities, and so we act as though they don’t exist!”

On the other hand, for many Republicans, especially the knee-jerk Republicans we seem to see as mainstream candidates these days, there is only a Right and a Wrong, and a Yes and a No, and if you even pause to THINK about the complexity of the issue, or about the space between Yes and No, then you are part of the No. They don’t understand that you can be right AND wrong. They don’t understand that two people can agree about a problem and disagree about a solution.

For a Democrat like Obama, it would seem natural, in a debate, to acknowledge when the opponent is right about certain things, and follow up with an explanation of why their interpretation of those things is still not the best, why some of the details are wrong, why something has been mischaracterized, or why they disagree with the solution to fixing those things, if they’re broken. For Obama to say, “John is right, but…” or “John is right, and we agree on that issue…” seems perfectly natural to us.

For the kind of Republicans who patched this ad together, this is a sign of weakness. The willingness to recognize the skill or knowledge of your opponent makes you a bad leader, in their eyes. Cooperation is weakness. Diplomacy is weakness. Mediation is weakness. Politeness is weakness. To them, you have to be a pit bull in lipstick. You can’t work things out; you have to WIN, at any cost. To them, there is a right, and there is a wrong, and for every Good Guy, there is a Bad Guy. There can’t be two Good Guys who are just different. One of them has to be Bad. And it’s true that sometimes this is the case – but sometimes you’re just talking about two people who want to do good but disagree on the meaning of “good,” or two people who want to fix the same problem but have very different solutions.

This is setting aside the reality that every single one of Obama’s acknowledgments of McCain’s accuracy on a point was followed by a “but,” which was meticulously edited out by the commercial’s creators. Never mind that it mischaracterizes Obama’s opinion of McCain’s beliefs and strategies (and tactics) and completely ignores that he had a strong rebuttal for each point. As far as I’m concerned, that is the obvious problem with the ad, and I don’t think people will fall for it. Not most people, anyway. For me, more problematic is the implication of the ad itself – that to them, the very fact that he was willing to concede a single inch, or say something positive about McCain, even just acknowledge that McCain is at all informed or intelligent or, you know, a human being, makes him a failure and serves as proof of his inability to lead. For them, if Obama acknowledges that McCain is right about one thing, it necessarily follows that 1) McCain is right about all things, and 2) Obama is wrong about all things.

I think that says a lot about what kind of administration McCain would run. It’s pretty much the same administration Bush ran – you’re either with us, or you’re against us. You’re either Christian, or you’re going to hell. You want every zygote to turn into a human, or else you’re a raving baby-murderer. You either support the nuclear family, or you’re a child molester who wants to undermine society and demolish the institution of marriage or marry your pet goat. If you aren’t a conservative, then you’re a radical left winger. You can either put complete and utter faith in the free market, or you can fess up to being a rabid socialist. You’re a blind supporter of US policy, or you’re a terrorist. You’re either a Republican, or you hate your country. If you try to reach over to the other side… you are weak. Oh, and you hate your country.

This most recent ad proves that John McCain will bring more of the same. After all, he’s John McCain, and he approves of this message.

Courtesy of my friend C:

Letterman keeps up McCain tirade – CNN.com.

Noting that McCain wanted to postpone Friday’s first debate with Obama, Letterman said running mate Sarah Palin wanted to put off her debate with Democrat Joe Biden until after Election Day. Letterman said Palin’s meeting with world leaders at the United Nations was like “take-your-daughter-to-work day.”

Oh, glee! I love it when people see through transparency.

As you probably already know, yesterday John McCain cancelled his appearance on David Letterman’s CBS late night talk show, claiming that he had to rush back to Washington because the economy was about to crater. Letterman was informed that McCain was rushing off to the airport and was about to board a plane immediately.

Well, about six and a half minutes into this video, you’ll see where McCain really had to go. Well, it turns out that while he was supposed to be on a plane, McCain was having his nose powdered on the set of Katie Couric’s CBS Evening News. Does he think nobody is going to catch him? Seriously? I mean, this is all on camera. In the public eye. What, Letterman just wasn’t going to notice the national broadcast? From the same building???

Of course, the benefit to McCain is that while some of us may see right through this blatant transparency, I guarantee you that the rightwing defense will be, “So what? Letterman isn’t important; the economy is!” To which the correct response is, of course, and now, which is more important, Katie Couric, or the economy? Because McCain put one of these first yesterday, and it wasn’t the economy.

The first couple minutes are not the main point, so if you are pressed for time, skip the intro and the praise for McCain’s war service, and start at 2:22. Or if you’re REALLY pressed for time, skip to 6:35, when things get really interesting. (But if you can, just watch the whole clip.)

McCain bails on Letterman

In a recent People Magazine interview, Clay Aiken confirmed that he is indeed gay. I have exactly one word in response: DUH.

But congrats to Aiken for finally being open and honest with the media!