Bullets with Butterfly Wings

Despite all his rage, he is still just a rat in a cage.

Apparently there’s a presidential debate on television right now. I guess I should flip over and watch it, but I need to let my food digest a little first. Maybe I’ll just record it and watch it later.

Over the weekend, John McCain decided to take his presidential campaign in a different direction. He decided to shift his attention away from things he knows nothing about, like the economy and the everyday hardships of people with only one house, and toward issues he knows a lot about, like character assassination. Self-described pit-bull Sarah Palin raised Obama’s fleeting association with ’60s radical turned University of Illinois professor Bill Ayers claiming Obama hates America so much he “pals around with terrorists” and “America haters” like Jeremiah Wright. McCain got up before small crowds of supporters today on Monday and called Obama a liar, claiming he refuses to answer questions about his past associations. Of course, Obama has answered questions about his past associations, in great detail, when these issues were raised by Senator Clinton during the Democratic primary. As a matter of fact, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos spent 45 minutes of a 75 minute debate discussing them. Apparently McCain doesn’t understand that an answer he doesn’t like is still an answer none-the-less.

McCain-Palin needs to be careful. I am well aware that the reason trailing candidates revert to personal attacks is that typically, negative campaigning works. However, since the attacks began on Saturday, Obama has gained 3 percentage points and 11 electoral votes in the Gallup tracking poll. I am by no means a believer in the intelligence and ability of the American voter to see through such tactics, but it is possible that in the midst of a plummeting stock market, increasing foreclosure rates and nine consecutive months of job-losses, voters might be less interested than usual it what some college professor was involved in when Barack Obama was eight years old. From what I understand, all charges against Bill Ayers were dropped over 30 years ago. If Ayers is a “terrorist” as Palin claims, have him arrested and charged with terrorism. Otherwise McCain-Palin should probably keep their smears to themselves. People living in glass houses - or associating with Alaskan separatists - should not throw stones.

How much more evidence do people need that when this campaign is about issues that affect people’s lives, McCain loses.

Add the phrase “game-changer” to the list of words I never want to hear again so long as I live. Never.

70 million people tuned in last Thursday night to watch the first and only debate between the vice presidential candidates. The verdict; Palin did well, Biden did better. Despite the post-debate propaganda of Michelle Malkin, the National Review Online and someone referred to in campaign commercials as “famous person” (later revealed to be former Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan), post-debate polls so far - four and five days later - indicate an uptick in support for the Obama-Biden ticket. Of course, Palin set expectations for herself so low that if she accomplished nothing more than merely showing up on stage and standing at the podium it would have been considered a win. She still sounded like an edited-for-television version of Fargo, lacing her string of talking points with “ mavericks” and “you betchas” and “ya darn tootin’s” and other assorted phony folksy charm, as well as “answers” to questions she was never asked. Her sportscasting experience also took center stage as she attempted to assemble factually incorrect oxymoronic snippets of mispronounced words like she was reading them off the tele-prompter, trying to force them all out before the highlights finished running on the blue screen behind her. But never mind all that. She’s a folksy “Joe six-pack hockey mom” state governor with a tanning bed in her living room. Just like you and me.

Cindy McCain is delusional. The $300,000 outfits must be going to her head. Today (Tuesday) she accused Barack Obama of running the "dirtiest campaign in American history." After 28 years of marriage, how could she possibly confuse her own husband with a 6'2" black man?

Enough politics. How about a little financial talk. The market fell 508 points today, following an early rally spurred by the bargain hunters. That amounts to a 13% loss of value over the past five days, and a 33% loss over the past twelve months. Does anyone still think that privatizing Social Security would have been a good idea?

Just to preface this comment, I hate baseball. I hate baseball the way Jennifer Aniston hates Angelina Jolie. But seriously, is there a more disappointing team in all of professional sports than the Chicago Cubs? Even I would have watched the Cubs in the World Series. I think there should be a mercy rule in pro sports. If your franchise has been an exercise in futility for 100 years, it should be removed from your city and all traces of its existence wiped from the face of the earth. No sports fan should have to live with 100 consecutive years of humiliation.

My NFL thoughts for Week 5.

The Lions really are that bad.

The Chiefs are even worse. How do you go from scoring 30 points last week to laying a big old rotten egg this week? Why not just pull 22 fans in jerseys out of the stands and let them run around the field. The couldn’t possibly do any worse.

The only reason the Rams didn’t make this list is because they didn’t play. Wait, they just made the list, didn’t they.

Every single Seattle Seahawk defender should return Sunday’s paycheck. Defenders get paid to tackle, don’t they? Not to smile and wave at Brandon Jacobs as he lopes past them. I know they’re pulling guys in off the street to play wide receiver, (Deion Branch returned for all of three minutes before leaving the game with a heel injury) but your receivers don’t play linebacker. Heck, maybe they should. That might be an improvement.

If you want to know how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, watch the final five minutes of the Colts - Texans game. The Colts scored 21 points in two minutes as a result of three turnovers by Texans quarterback Sage Rosenfels. A Manning touchdown pass to some guy no one ever heard of cut the lead to ten late in the fourth quarter. But with four minutes to go, Rosenfels decided that instead of taking a slide and protecting the ball he would deliver his best impression of John Elway in the ’98 Superbowl, leaping over a tackle, getting helicoptered by two defenders, then - unlike Elway - fumbled the football, which was promptly recovered by the Colts and returned for a touchdown. On the ensuing Texan possession, Rosenfels failed to notice a Colt defensive end chasing him as he rolled to his left trying to make a pass and had the ball knocked from his hands, recovered again by Colt defenders. That lead to a Reggie Wayne touchdown on the sideline of the end zone that at least ties - if not surpasses Marty Booker’s catch against the Lions in Detroit for catch of the year. Rosenfels then went ahead to rub salt in his own wounds by throwing an interception to end the game. After the game he told the media that his mistakes may have cost the team a victory. Isn’t honesty refreshing? What else would you expect from a dude named Sage, right?

Ben Roethlisberger is one tough S.O.B. Can’t say it any better than that.

Monday night was shaping up to be Reggie Bush’s coming out party. In the football sense. Not in the gay sense. Two-and-a-half punts returns for touchdowns in one game is Hester-esque. Too bad the Saints had to go and screw it up by losing the game.

My Superbowl picks for Week 5: New York Giants vs. Pittsburgh Steelers

On the lighter side, word is that Elizabeth Hasselbeck is leaving “The View.” I don’t know why anyone cares or why that made the news, but people do and it did. Apparently she’s gained notoriety for expressing in-depth, throughly-reasoned, well-rounded opinions and commentary on current events. Seems as though she’ll be missed. Maybe she and Rosie O’Donnell will do a show together. Survivor: Times Square.

Tennis superstar and consensus smokin’ hot babe Maria Sharapova put herself up for auction at a charity fundraising event last week. The highest bidder would receive a date with the lovely Russian blonde. Seems Sharapova thought her brand new boyfriend would be able to put up the winning bid and take her out for a nice dinner. But apparently the boyfriend was sniped at the last moment by some luck dude who offered in excess of $10,000 for an evening with Maria. How awkward is that date going to be? And seriously? Only $10,000 dollars? Wow. If I’d just refinanced my house that could have been me.

Finally tonight, have I mentioned how much I love Seattle? First drive-thru bikini coffee shops, now this. Tryouts are underway for The Lingerie Football League. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like, a 10-team football league featuring games played by young ladies in lingerie. I meticulously reviewed the video footage of the tryouts posted on CNN.com for this report, and while the National Football League it is not, the ladies are... in all honestly... not terrible. I don’t think any of them are professional athletes, but some of them can actually throw and catch and run. Of course, none of them can block or tackle, but that’s not what the Lingerie Football League is about, is it. When asked what she thought the allure of the league might be, one tryout participant - ogled from the bleachers by a group of construction workers on their lunch break - replied thoughtfully, “...probably half-naked women playing football... would be my guess.” Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real straight-talk express.