Some folks just can't let go

Perhaps you've heard it said that in war, the victors write the history. Well, I think that's true of politics to some extent, too.

What I've found particularly humorous during my nomadic treks around America's Wang™ is the number of McCain-Palin bumper stickers I've seen still on cars. While I'm tempted to say, as Republicans memorably and vociferously did in 2000 and 2004, "You lost -- get over it," I won't stoop to their level. (At least not yet ...) But what does baffle me is the degree of cognitive dissonance that remains as a kind of epitaph for the miserably failed neo-conservative movement -- and those remaining bumper stickers are ongoing reminders of that dissonance.

Take, for example, the sticker I just saw:

Help Regular Joes
McCain For President

This sticker was on a large, Expedition-like SUV driven by a well-groomed white-haired gentleman (white, of course -- as if you had to ask) accompanied by a woman who I presume was his wife. Point is, these people were hardly "regular Joes" in any reasonable sense ... not unlike their heroes John and Cindy McCain, whose only meaningful contact with "regular Joes" has come through employing them. It's also a handy reminder of that utterly ridiculous "Joe the Plumber" scheme, which fittingly will be derided by political scholars and campaign strategists for decades to come.

I don't have any sympathy for people like that SUV driver. But sometimes I do wonder how they're able to function, given that they must live in a world so profoundly detached from reality. It must be tiring to have to delude one's self every day ...

Damon vs. Giuliani in Palm Beach County

It was an interesting juxtaposition of political and cultural icons yesterday in Palm Beach County, as actor Matt Damon, stumping for Obama, stopped by his candidate's West Palm Beach headquarters while, in the small, affluent community of Lake Clarke Shores, our old pal Rudy "This Can Only Be Good News For" Giuliani knocked on doors and, with the always-plastic Cindy McCain, visited with our alleged local version of Joe the Plumber.

"We hear it from everybody we talk to. They say to us ... 'John McCain's got to be elected, because if Obama gets elected we're going to be ruined. We're going to be ruined with this share-the-wealth program,'" said Giuliani.

For proof, Giuliani offered Tom Kohlwaies Jr., a volunteer whom the McCain campaign dubbed the area's "Joe the Plumber." The former New York mayor threw an arm around Kohlwaies and presented him to reporters.

"Me and my father own a small landscaping business and we're concerned that we fall in the tax bracket that most people, or I guess liberals, would say that we're rich," said Kohlwaies, who said his business brings in a little over $250,000 per year. "We're afraid that our taxes will go up if Mr. Obama's elected."

Can anyone spot the pandering in that last passage? Here's a hint: there are two examples.

Okay, first, "if Obama gets elected we're going to be ruined?" Well, for one thing, my Republican friends, you're already ruined -- or, if you're not, it's not going to be the Obama administration's policies that do it. Nope -- although you may be too dumb or obstinate to see it, it's your own party's policies, starting with Drunky McStagger himself, that have sent you on the path to ruin. Look, when Alan fucking Greenspan, of all people, who'd rather nail Ayn Rand than his own wife (NBC shill Andrea Mitchell), admits that, well, maybe the invisible hand of the free market really was too busy jerking itself off to avoid the current economic freefall, then you've pretty much lost that fight, folks.

Moreover, if all you rich fuckers are going to be "ruined" if Obama is elected, then I'm doubly glad I cast my vote for Sens. Obama and Biden last week. Serves you selfish bastards right, frankly ... because then maybe some people you've been ignoring -- the unemployed, the downtrodden, the homeless, the minorities -- might actually have a fighting chance for survival in this country.

Anyway, secondly, let's take a look at our new friend, Tom Kohlwaies, Jr. Mighty convenient, don't you think, that Mr. Kohlwaies' business allegedly earns "a little over $250,000 per year" -- or just above the threshold where Obama's tax increases theoretically would kick in. Well, maybe the GOP vetted this guy a little more carefully than they did Joe the Plumber ... but the theory still holds: if you're making more than $250,000 a year, you can afford to take a little greater hit in taxes in order to repair some of the economic, moral, and cultural damage wrought by the Republicans over the past decade and a half. So, in short, Mr. Kohlwaies: get over it. (And work on your English grammar while you're at it.)

Meanwhile, Matt Damon popped by Obama HQ as a sort of thank-you to the hard-working staffers and volunteers there:

Damon talked of how he recently visited a soup kitchen in San Francisco where most of the people there had homes and jobs, but were still struggling to get by.

Damon urged people to urge people to get out and vote early.

Juxtaposition? More like Good vs. Evil, if you ask me. And the Good people are the ones who want to help others, not just themselves.

Well, thanks for the pandering, Rudy -- but I think we'll just take the wheel of this country now and try to get it out of the ditch into which you and your cronies have driven it.

Random thought

When his staff presented Huggy Bear with the McCain-Palin slogan, Country First, he misheard it, so he liked it because he thought it was about his wife.

Huggy ♥ Harleys

Hey, remember last week I told you that Huggy Bear would be appearing at the Sturgis (S.D.) Motorcycle Rally?

Well, he did, yesterday. And he apparently made, um, quite an impression.

One woman wore little but a deep tan. Tattoos reigned, as did black leather. The emcee praised America for its "beautiful roads, beautiful bikes and ice-cold beer."

Motorcycle engines revved in deafening approval when a rock guitarist played the national anthem at earsplitting volume and with a soaring solo, a la Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. Kid Rock was to perform later in the evening, and Kiss was due at another nearby stage.

Suffice it to say that few political rallies can match John McCain's brief appearance on an outdoor stage Monday night before several thousand bikers at the 68th annual Sturgis Rally, America's largest biker convention and arguably its most colorful national gathering.

Rather than applause, McCain was greeted again and again by the full-throated roar of scores of gleaming Harley-Davidsons of every shape and color. The stench of burning gasoline and rowdy shouts filled the prairie night air.

It was almost as if McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was a celebrity -- a dirty word in his lexicon since his campaign last week ran ads mocking rival Barack Obama for his celebrity status, comparing him to Britney Spears.

Taking the stage at Buffalo Chip, the main festival site, McCain again ridiculed the presumptive Democratic nominee for drawing "hundreds of thousands" of people to an outdoor speech in Berlin.

Exaggerating his own reception by a considerable factor, McCain boasted, "I'll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day."

As dozens of engines revved again, he grinned. "I recognize that sound. It's the sound of freedom."

Huggy Bear shows the modest gathering at Sturgis that he can lift his arms THIS high.

I love that "exaggerating his own reception" line -- hah! But quite obviously the crowd wasn't nearly as large as the campaign might have liked:

McCain is the first presidential candidate to attend Sturgis -- ever -- and his newly aggressive campaign clearly enjoyed positioning him against such a muscular backdrop. But the crowd of rugged bikers and scantily clad women who cheered him was far smaller than the throngs who crowded makeshift bars, tattoo parlors and other attractions in the dusty field.

[...]

Before taking the stage, McCain and his wife bought four souvenir T-shirts. While in the store, McCain glanced at a rack of red T-shirts that featured a picture of a topless woman, apparently Miss Buffalo Chip or a wannabe.

A few feet away stood the woman herself, who goes by Jessica, wearing a black bikini and black leather chaps, signing autographs.

McCain did not go over to her, but several other male patrons did.

"I don't want John McCain's autograph," one man said with a slur. "I want yours." He held up a T-shirt for Jessica to sign.

Now that would have been a nice photo op ... I'll have to see if anyone got it.

Let's hope they didn't get this one, though:

The Arizona senator introduced his wife, Cindy, who wore the equivalent of a nun's habit here: black jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She praised her husband as "the only man who can keep us free."

McCain joked that he had encouraged his wife to enter the annual Sturgis beauty contest, one in which nudity is not uncommon. The engines roared again.

"I told her with a little luck she could be the only lady to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip," he said with a broad grin.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

UPDATE (5:03 pm 8/5/08): Courtesy of TPM, here's the video of Huggy Bear offering up Cindy for "Miss Buffalo Chip" honors. What a class act.

Today's Daily Schadenfreude: John McCain

Of course, the mainstream corporate media will continue to tell you that it's the Democrats who are in shambles/disarray/trouble, but looky here at the Republicans! Seems that ol' Huggy Bear might face a bit of mutiny at the Republican National Convention this September:

McCain has not yet signaled the changes he plans to make in the GOP platform, but many conservatives say they fear wholesale revisions could emerge as candidate McCain seeks to put his stamp on a document that currently reflects the policies and principles of President Bush.

"There is just no way that you can avoid anticipating what is going to come. Everyone is aware that McCain is different on these issues," said Jessica Echard, executive director of the conservative Eagle Forum. "We're all kind of waiting with anticipation because we just don't know how he's going to thread this needle."

McCain has spent the past year and a half trying to straddle the philosophical schism in the modern Republican Party. In primaries, he stressed his conservative credentials, but since clinching the nomination he has often reminded voters of his more moderate stances while professing his fealty to conservative positions.

A platform fight at the convention could disrupt that carefully choreographed effort by highlighting the stark differences in vision for the party separating McCain from some of the GOP's most dedicated activists.

The battle may not be avoidable. The current GOP platform is a 100-page document, and all but nine pages mention Bush's name. Virtually the entire platform will have to be rewritten to lessen the imprint of the president, who has the highest disapproval rating of any White House occupant since Richard M. Nixon.

It's hilarious how both Huggy Bear and the Party itself are racing each other to shed the destructive, pathetic legacy of Drunky McStagger, yet both of them also embrace his failed policies almost in their entirety. And yet Huggy, not being "conservative" enough for the right-wing extremists who still hold sway in the GOP (evidently he's still plenty warmongering and torturing enough, though), is going to confront a lot of distaste in St. Paul, and not just from the protesters outside the Excel Center.

The crazed wingnuts are especially up in arms about Huggy's positions on global climate change, immigration, and stem cell research. As usual, they'd rather kill brown people and protect embryos until birth (but only until then -- after that you're on your own) than support their party's candidate. Who's in disarray again?

Geez, Huggy, can't a failed fighter pilot and Communist appeaser get any electoral love from his own party these days? Well, you can comfort yourself with your wife's big hair (Jeebus, I thought that was Dolly Parton there for a minute), her bigger bank account, and the knowledge that today's Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!

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