brainiac conspiracy

Friday Night Spook-a-Thon

Oh yeah, I almost forgot it's Halloween. My favorite time of year.

Update: Because we need a little spooky music too.

---Vitelius

Income Redistribution We Can Believe In

John McCain: Motor City Marxist.

---Vitelius

Lenny Bruce Said it Was All Due to Poor Toilet Training

Case study in the psychopathology of post-Reagan movement conservatism: The essay begins with a literary allegory depicting an act of sexual humiliation:

There is a scene in Flannery O'Connor's 1960 novel The Violent Bear It Away, wherein the protagonist, a 14-year-old boy, is picked up hitchhiking by a man in a lavender automobile. The man plies the boy, Francis Tarwater, with whiskey and reefer. When the boy wakes up he's lying in a field with his pants around his ankles, and his asshole burning. I won't get into the Catholic allegory in that story, or the implication that the man in the lavender automobile is Satan, or Tarwater's own inexorable slide into fundamentalist prophecy. I will aver, however, that I find the story relevant. Hold that thought.

Okay. One paragraph later, the author proclaims

I firmly believe Barack Obama absolutely loathes my kind. This man will not be content to win the presidency. He will spend his waking hours thereafter not pursuing the legitimate goals of state, but punishing those who would dare to oppose him . . .

This man truly hates. As only someone who is quite aware of his great shortcomings can hate. And like the second monkey he can hear, or tolerate, no evil . . .

Did I mention this man hates me? You and me? Yes he does. Why? Because he can. Yes He Can. Beneath that cool persona is a megalomaniac. Cool? Like Stalin after a purge, emotionally and sexually spent. Like Saddam after a torture session, dozing in his chair with someone's genitals curled in his fist. (Emphasis added.)

The author concludes:

I am Tarwater. We are all Tarwater.

Now, let me ask you: if you were a practicing psychoanalyst, or have ever been to one, or have ever even read a book on psychoanalysis, what would your diagnosis be?

---Vitelius

Studs

This really is a damn shame. If anyone in America besides Barack Obama's grandmother ever deserved to see November 4 this year, it was him.

No further eulogies needed. The man was a genuine patriot, in the fullest sense of the word.

---Vitelius

Why I Read Nutblogs so You Don't Have To

Warning: Irony-Free Zone ahead. From a 250-page racist rant patriotic tract titled Half-Blood Prince:

Early in Hunter S. Thompson's New Journalism classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Dr. Gonzo, Thompson's "300-pound Samoan attorney," questions whether Sports Illustrated would be so credulous as the send the two of them to Sin City with "unlimited credit," which they will most assuredly squander in a drug debauch. Thompson answers:

"You Samoans are all the same," I told him. "You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man's culture."

Few individuals have enjoyed more palpable and repeated evidence than Barack Obama, Sr. of the essential decency of the white man's culture, which provided him with an expensive education and two wives which bore him three sons during their bigamous marriages.

Where in the hell do these people come from?

---Vitelius

Simple Solutions to Vexing Social Problems

Can we just sell this place back to Russia? How about if we simply deed it back to them if they're short of scratch? Any objections?

---Vitelius

The Some People Really Don't Know When to Shut Up Dept.

Shorter Moose Whisperer: Anyone who calls me on my shit is infringing on my Constitutional right to talk shit without being called on it. L'etat, c'est moi!

In other news, the Baron is re-reading the Federalist Papers tonight. Somehow, I missed that chapter Sarah Palin was talking about when I was in school.

---Vitelius

Trenchant Insight of The Day

Didn't Joe Plumber used to play with The Clash? When did he become such a nut case?

---Vitelius  

Can They Get Even Crazier? Yep

You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy . . . Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, and you are getting very, verrrrrry sleepy and when I count three, you will be fast asleep and scary liberal Muslim terrorists will take over America.

--Vitelius

He Must've Been On The Phone With His Publicist

Poor Huggy, all alone in the Valley of the Dolls.

This is truly sweet---in the music business, I think we used to call it "papering the house":

A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.

---Vitelius

The X Factor

Not too much time for blogging today---the Baron actually has some other things to attend to tonight, but I couldn't let this doozy escape notice, though as a rule I hesitate to link to wingnut fever-sites. You've not doubt heard your share of wacko Obama stories, but here's a new one. The narrative is about as jumbled and convoluted as these screeds typically run, and there's at least one obviously doctored photo of Obama in it. That said, did you know that Barack Obama's real biological father was this guy? Me neither.

I guess it's no small irony this site is named in honor of an Ayn Rand novel?

---Vitelius

Hump Day Soul Food

You know, I saw this dude sing once, a long time ago, in a green velvet double-breasted suit, with hip-hugger bell-bottoms, of course, and a matching fop hat. Weirdly enough, it was at the Tomorrowland Pavilion at Disneyland in 1971, and you never saw such a bunch of inbred OC white monkeys get up and shake their asses uncontrollably when this cat sang. And because we all need a break from Plumbers real and imagined.

---Vitelius

Insta-Blogging the Obamathon

Well, not much new here, at least for those of us who have followed him closely, and it certainly contained more than its share of strings and schmaltz, which sadly seems de rigeur for these kinds of made-for-TV info-pageants. But as a calculated (and rather expensive) piece of political theater aimed primarily at winning over undecided voters in a handful of states, it struck me as a fairly effective production. The most poignant elements, I thought, were the interviews with Real Folks™ in Ohio and Kentucky and New Mexico who spoke of their anxieties over the economy and health care, of their kids' futures and their own retirement, and by steering the focus of this video towards immediate domestic concerns, Obama's producers managed to propel the pace with a sense of urgency while infusing it with the pathos that accompanies the everyday dramas endured by that fabled Silent Majority. By contrast, the repeated stock-footage stump speech episodes seemed a bit gratuitous, and I thought that his best on-camera bits were those where he spoke straight at the camera in a firm but assuring voice.

Overall, I guess I'd give it an A on content and a generous B in presentation. How effective will it be in winning over the elusive undecideds? Who knows, but it can't hurt when the logical thread of the debate is funneled into the heart of Obama's strike zone with voters---the economy and health care---and of course, it can't hurt that there's a World Series game pitting a team from Florida and a team from Pennsylvania airing five minutes later on Fox.

Interestingly enough, the new McCain "Not Ready" ad aired on MSNBC about 10 minutes after the Obama piece, and it rang rather terse and unserious when compared to the image of an oh-so-serious-and-self-contained Obama that had just finished beaming into peoples' living rooms. No doubt it will rouse the partisan rabble, but a thirty-second brush-off doesn't simply have the impact or staying power of a thirty-minute infomercial. Another gamble that won't pay off? Well, McCain's been on such a roll lately, what would your guess be?

---Vitelius

Tuesday Night Smackball

Because great artists do not always get their due. It's not quite complete, but . . .

---Vitelius

MSM Value Reminder of The Day

Charlie Savage is still the man.

---Vitelius

Do The Hensleys Get Any Royalties?

As I understand it, the "theme" of this spot is based on a beer commercial from a few years back. I never saw it, but whatever its origins, this is just about the most timely, and most evocative, political ad I've seen in a very, very long time:

---Vitelius

Euthanasia, Interrupted

Courtesy of Josh Marshall today, Charlie the Poll Guy pleads for a little mercy:

Only the most partisan of Democrats or cold-hearted of people would fail to have some compassion or sympathy towards a party for which virtually everything has gone wrong. Someone recently likened it to watching a wounded dog kicked.

Well, perhaps. And far be it for me to chortle at the thought of cruelty to animals. On the other hand, if that same dog has spent the last 15 years pissing in your flower beds, crapping on your front lawn, biting your kids on their way to school each morning, and keeping your family awake every night with compulsive barking jags . . .

Put it this way: these malignant sons of bitches have spent the last 15 years trying to refashion our Constitutional form of government, with its open balloting and an independent judiciary, into a single-party dominant, PRI-style syndicate in which all three branches of government exist for the overarching purpose of defending and strengthening the party itself. It is a kinder, gentler form of Sovietism, with a generous dollop of Mobutu-level kleptocracy thrown in for their own enrichment. Insofar as they have been successful at their task, they have only managed to accomplish it through a curriculum of serial lawbreaking, which largely continues to go unpunished today, and through the constant bullying and intimidation of those who dare to differ with them, be they foreign or domestic. If you're lucky enough to live here, you only have to worry about them spying on you. If you live overseas, they'll invade your country, kick your ass, and occupy your land to spread the cause of freedom. For real.

Like the PRI in its, er, last throes, the post-Reagan Republican Party resembles an elaborately ritualized extortion racket as much as it resembles an advocacy-based political organization at this point, and it frankly deserves to be treated as such. Whether we bury it next week, or its sundry members slowly asphyxsiate on their own avarice, the point in bringing this rabid dog to heel is a simple matter of restoring order in the neighborhood, of re-birthing a more civil and lawful society. Compassion and sympathy play no part in it: to paraphrase Brad DeLong, burn it down, plow it under, and sow the furrows with salt.

---Vitelius

Note to Rupert: Get Roger Ailes Some Xanax

Introducing Fox's newest foreign policy expert (drum roll, please) . . . yeah, That One!

Listen, you don't want my opinion on foreign policy. I know just enough about foreign policy to probably be dangerous.

Which naturally doesn't stop the intrepid Shep Smith from continuing to ask him more foreign policy questions.

Smith: That is what I was wondering. I wonder if you think it is dangerous at all for people to say that a vote for Barack Obama is the same as a vote for Israel, if you think that is dangerous for people to start believing. What happens if the polls are right and he becomes President of the United States and people start thinking that this means the death of Israel. Are you worried about what people might do if they actually believe something like that?

Plumber: That goes back to what I just got done saying. Some people believe it wholeheartedly. This gentleman I spoke to is Middle America. Therefore...it is very important to him -- important to me, but especially important to this gentleman. He is Middle America and he was able to get on there and make his point, and I agreed with him. I have no idea where John McCain's position is on that. John McCain is his own person, just like I am.

Smith: Do you think a lot of that has to do with some hateful things that spread all over the internet? After all, Barack Obama has said repeatedly time after time that there is nothing more important that the United States friendship with Israel-- and the United States will back up Israel every moment of every day if and when he becomes President of the United States. He could not have been clearer about it in his positions in speeches, and I just wonder what it is that makes you think he is lying about that.

Plumber: [illegible] Actions...I have heard words. I hear words from politicians all the time, but actions [crosstalk] the action that I see is offering to meet with certain enemies of the United States on no uncertain terms --

Smith: Meeting with Ahmadinejad? That is what the campaign said. Let's put the statement on the screen. This is what the McCain campaign released after you said that at the campaign event today. So that is what they put out. "While he's clearly his own man, so far Joe has offered some penetrating and clear analysis that cuts to the core of many of the concerns that people have with Barack Obama's statements and policies. Whether it is Obama's willingness to sit down unconditionally with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or his plans to redistribute the paychecks of hardworking Americans, there is good reason to question the judgement that Obama would bring to the Oval Office." So that's what they put out, so I guess the fact that he has said it he would meet with Ahmadinejad is something that you have taken to believe would be the death of Israel?

Plumber: It definitely does not help the situation. I'm not trying to be dancing around this. I honestly want people to go out and find their own reasons. I tell people not to listen to everyone else's opinion. I'm not going to have them start listening to mine. Go out and get informed.

Smith: Joe Wurzelbacher on the line with us after a GOP stop, a number of them today.

I just want to make this 100 percent perfectly clear -- Barack Obama has said 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.

I've been meaning for quite some time to write a lengthy essay on the virulent strain of inchoate anti-intellectualism that's infected GOP politics---and our body politic, regrettably---for the last 50 years, and connect the viral strands from Goldwater to Nixon to Reagan and so forth, all the way down to the present generation, to The Moose Whisperer and The Unlicensed Handyman. And you know what? Every time I start to write, I find some kernel of idiocy on the Internets like this . . . and I realize I don't have write a goddamn thing. How could I improve on raw material such as this? These damn people could put me out of the blogging business if they keep it up. ---Vitelius

Note to Roger Ailes: Get This Woman Some Xanax

These people are reeeeally losing it. The difference in temperament here between Bill Burton and the Fox Fluffhead of The Month is striking. If you didn't know any better, which of these two individuals would you guess has a background in broadcasting?

Of course, when the polling numbers are still tracking in your direction, you can afford to be cool on camera, but nice work by Bill Burton here anyway. Has the Obama campaign been the most disciplined outfit we've ever seen in a national election campaign, or what?

---Vitelius

Monday Night Fireball

In honor of Joe the Plumber's rumored bid for Congress:

Our candidate: Tim the Enchanter.

Update: Serendipitously enough, it is also Tim's birthday today. Happy . . . 39th, I suppose.

---Vitelius