Grumpy Old Man, Part II

Those "hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn " jokes don't seem so funny this morning. I'm starting to feel sorry for poor old McGrouchy. I know I shouldn't...

I wasn't even aware of the outrage over "That One" until I got home and checked in online. I heard him say it but my reaction was that it was just more of the same nasty attitude he has demonstrated through two nights and three tortuous hours of "debate". I didn't see it as anything worse than everything else he has said and done to disrespect Obama. But Mrs. Diddie saw '50's-vintage racism laced within the retort.

Others also took offense, but I just don't think it was a racist remark, even subliminally by a guy who has a record of bigoted remarks.

No, McCain is just a mean old bastard. He left the hall quickly with his trophy wife following the debate, while Obama stayed long after and worked the crowd. Remember, this face-off was held in Nashville Tennessee, as red a state as they come. And during the "town hall" McCain touched the shoulder and shook the hand of a former chief petty officer who asked a question, so rapport with the audience -- even if it was superficial -- shouldn't have been his problem.

McCain is ornery, quick to judgment and self-righteous -- in other words, a classic conservative. Some would say "Maverickey".

And contrary to what he thinks about himself, I don't believe John McCain's hand is steady enough for the tiller.

Your Bingo card for tonight's debate

More here.

Update: What Obama should say tonight if the words 'Ayers' or 'Wright' fall out of McLame's mouth ...

John, your campaign has already said it intends to spend the last four weeks of this campaign mostly attacking me. And with the William Ayers thing, we have some idea of what kind of attacks to expect. But you folks at home, if you go to CNN's website -- and this is a bit of free advertising, I guess -- they have a thing called Campaign Fact Check. If you go there, and look up William Ayers, you'll see that they've called that attack FALSE, and you'll see exactly WHY it's false. And that's not my campaign saying that -- that's CNN! They're saying it's false.

That's why if it were just the two of us, if it were just Barack Obama and John McCain involved, and if there were nothing else at stake, I'd have no problem at all turning this election into a mudslinging battle. I've got plenty of mud for you, believe me.

But it's not just the two of us. The American people are also part of this, and if you drag this election down to that level, they're the ones who are gonna lose.

So for their sake, John, I'm asking you to join me in a pledge -- and I don't have any paper to sign, we'll just do it on a handshake if you agree. I'm asking you to join me in a pledge, for the last four weeks of this election, to get rid of the character assassinations, to get rid of the smears, and to run honorable campaigns that talk about the issues -- the economy, health care, Iraq, education, jobs, gas prices -- that the American people actually care about. That's the kind of campaign they deserve.

So John, will you come over here and shake my hand?

The Big Dog and Chris Bell; Richardson and Hoyer for Skelly

In exchange for his support for Hillary in the primary, Chris Bell gets a big ol' bone thrown his way:

Bill Clinton will come to Houston on Monday, Oct. 13 to headline a fundraising event for Chris Bell, candidate in the special election for State Senate District 17.

"I am honored to have President Clinton come to Houston to help my campaign,” said Chris Bell. “It’s unusual to have a former President of the United States of America help raise money for a state legislative race, but he knows that this is an incredible opportunity to make real progress for the people of Texas.”

Ambassador Arthur Schechter will host the fundraiser at his home Monday evening. Democratic Party stalwart Bernard Rapoport will serve as “Honorary Chair” of the event. Details on getting tickets will be posted on ChrisBell.com.

This race is almost out of reach for the GOP. From the same press release:

A poll conducted by Cooper and Secrest in August showed that Chris Bell has a 34-point lead over the Republican candidates who remain clustered in a statistical tie for second place. The initial trial heat, asked of 400 likely special election voters Aug. 14-18, had Chris Bell at 42%, with Republicans Joan Huffman at 8%, Austen Furse at 5%, and Grant Harpold at 4%. A poll subsequently released by Mrs. Huffman’s own campaign confirmed Chris Bell’s standing as a frontrunner and the rest of the field’s statistical proximity to single digits.

In May, an independent poll conducted for Texans for Insurance Reform found that Chris Bell has higher name identification in SD 17 than U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. The pollster, Jeff Smith of Opinion Analysts, labeled Mr. Bell the “front-runner in a very winnable contest.”

Fifty-percent-plus-one eliminates a runoff. This race will be at the top of every ballot in the five Southeast Texas counties that get to vote on it.

In other heavyweight news flashes (pun intended, Governor Richardson), this missive from SDEC member Ron Rea contains the following announcement of events to benefit the campaign of CD-07 Democratic challenger Michael Skelly:

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will be here for a luncheon on Thursday, October 16, at a location to be announced soon.

Steny Hoyer, Member of Congress and House Whip for the Democratic Party, will be here for a breakfast event in downtown Houston on Wednesday, October 22.

A political contribution for each event is $100 per plate.

More to come on these, but worth noting is that Skelly has pulled within striking distance of incumbent John Culberson, who last Friday hosted a shooting event with John Boehner at a west side gun club.

(I mean, really; could the differences be any more stark?)

The domestic terrorists pallin' around with Palin

When you and your husband spend a lot of time hanging out with a radical secessionist fringe third-party whose founder died in a plastic explosives deal gone bad, you probably shouldn't fling your conservative howler monkey poop at other people:



And if a radical fundamentalist evangelical preacher makes a prayer over you to keep away the witchcraft, then you probably shouldn't attempt to cast aspersions about someone else's minister. That horse, of course, was beaten to death before the summer began, but whipping up BS seems to be the only thing this woman is any good at.

We already knew you were stupid, Sarah. It's just too bad you don't have even the sense to shut up and stop proving it.

John McCain, his tangled involvement in the S&L scandal of the '80's that resulted in his charter membership in the Keating Five, not to mention its foretelling implications on the current economic disaster he so fervently desires to put aside, aside ...

Sarah Palin is nothing but a dumbass bitch who has no business whatsoever in politics above the level of Wasilla, Alaska. Thirty more days of this woman's nonsense and then we won't have to think about her again for at least four more years.

Update:

Palin, unleashed and unhinged, whips a Florida crowd into a racist frenzy ...

In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy." ...

... Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Gee, I wonder where the Secret Service was when the death threats against a presidential candidate were being shouted out.

And Joe Klein, with "Embarracuda":

I'm of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign's further descent into ugliness. Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to analyze the putresence in a way that conveys a sense of balance: "Well, it is bull-pucky, but the splatter pattern is interesting..." which, of course, only serves to get your perverse message out. I really don't want to be a part of that. But...every so often, we journalists have a duty to remind readers just how dingy the McCain campaign, and its right-wing acolytes in the media (I'm looking at you, Sean Hannity) have become--especially in their efforts to divert public attention from the economic crisis we're facing. And so inept at it: other campaigns have decided that their only shot is going negative, but usually they don't announce it, as several McCain aides have in recent days -- there's no way we can win on the economy, so we're going to go sludge-diving.

But since we are dealing with manure here, I'll put the rest of this post below the fold.

You can't make shit like this up. And it's going to get worse. For the next month. And some people are going to decide to vote for the Republicans because of it.

How fucked up is that?