Pick Me, Pick Me!

Today is election day in Canada. No victory announcements yet. For some reason they refuse to release the results until all the polls have closed. Lame.

Remember the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four? Am I the only one who finds its resemblance to John McCain’s campaign a little disturbing?

The McCain campaign wants us to believe that whatever it says today must be the truth - and always has been, regardless of whether or not it is. On Friday morning, Sarah Palin told reporters she was excited to be cleared of all legal and ethical violations related to the on-going “Trooper-gate” investigation in Alaska. Except that she wasn’t. She was, if fact, found to be in violation of the state’s ethics laws by the bipartisan commission investigating her. Oops. On Monday, McCain debuted a new stump speech in which he blathers about Obama picking out drapes for the White House. If Obama is so confident of victory, why is he making three campaign stops a day, seven days a week in places no Democrat has even considered competing in over the past 50 years, while McCain continues to take weekends off? Hmm.

I’m not sure if we’re witnessing a campaign in crisis, or a campaign mirroring the mind of its leader. And at this point, I’m not sure it matters. I will never underestimate the capacity of the American voter to shoot themselves in the foot right before crossing the finish line, (see Florida, circa 2000), but some interesting developments have taken place over the last seven days to temper my innate sense of pessimism... uh, I mean realism.

After 10 days of relentless assaults on Senator Obama’s character and prior tenuous (at best) associations by his campaign surrogates, vice presidential nominee and finally the candidate himself, McCain finds himself trailing Obama by an average of 8.1 points nationally, (10 points according to Gallup and ABC News), and down 14 points in favorability rating. In an attempt to demonstrate leadership in difficult economic times, McCain went in gun blazing, suspended his campaign (sort of) to rush back to Washington and inject himself into the bailout talks, took credit for a deal that subsequently fell through, blamed Senator Obama for its failure only to later take credit for killing the bill, and threatened to skip the first debate if no deal was reached, yet showed up for said debate without a deal in place. He has presented new economic initiatives, fundamentally altered them less than 12 hours later, then promised a complete slate of revised economic policies, only to decide on the day they were to be released, not to release them, then announce them at a rally the following day. At a town hall style debate - considered to be his strong suit - McCain wandered about the stage like he was looking for a lost puppy, providing condescending answers to voter questions and bolting the venue as soon as the debate was over. For a man who has designed his persona and built his campaign around experience and steady leadership, he has appeared erratic and unsure of himself for at least three weeks now, all the while claiming his opponent is the inexperienced, risky choice. There is still plenty of time for this bizarre line of attack to resonate with voters, but it is possible - maybe likely that McCain will have to attempt yet another switch in strategy in order to work his way back into this race.

The absolute hysteria displayed by the right at the prospect of an Obama presidency would be amusing if it weren’t so dangerously serious. Every four years, the conservative talk show cabal and their disciples get up on their soapboxes and regale anyone who will listen with frightening stories of how the country will devolve into (insert the name of your favorite third world socialist dictatorship here) if a Democrat is elected to the White House. Since the end of World War II, five Democrats have occupied the office of the President, and each time (with the exception of one) American has emerged a stronger, more prosperous nation, with its Constitution intact, adherent to the principles of representative democracy. But, in spite of the evidence and the lessons of history, the perpetual paranoia of the right has them seeing the second coming of Chairman Mao in the body of Huey Newton. Given such inflammatory rhetoric, is anyone truly surprised by the level of fear and loathing toward Obama demonstrated by supporters at McCain-Palin rallies? When you dehumanize, demonize your opponent, your supporters begin to feel justified in comparing him to Osama bin Laden and advocating violence against him. It seems obvious that Governor Palin has no qualms about courting the votes of such unhinged voters, but John McCain is supposedly a man of character. His political career will continue regardless of whether or not he wins the election three weeks from now. He needs to ask himself if these are the haters and this is the type of campaign he wants history to associate with him. To his credit he took a positive step toward answering that question late last week when he corrected one supporter who claimed Obama was an Arab, and earlier, defended the Illinois senator’s character to a chorus of boos at a town hall meeting. While under unfair and malicious character assassination by Karl Rove and George Bush in the 2000 presidential primary, McCain made the statement that character attacks were the refuge of candidates who have run out of ideas. He needs to follow his own wisdom and prove to us that he still has a few ideas left.

Who is Sarah Palin?

Remember that National Security Agency surveillance program President Bush insisted was only being used to eavesdrop on calls between terrorists and their sympathizers? Turns out it was also being used by NSA employees to listen in on phone calls between soldiers and their families. When someone came across a particularly salacious phone call, it was recorded and passed around the office for everyone’s entertainment. Surprise! Who would have thought that given the opportunity to abuse the rights of American citizens the NSA would do just that. Never saw that one coming.

Merely days after receiving an $85 billion loan from the taxpayers in order to keep their sorry excuse for an insurance company afloat, executives at AIG spent $440K on a party for themselves at a resort/spa which - among other things - provides rooms for dogs at $500 a night. Aren’t you glad your tax dollars are being put to good use? I hope that when this is over, these clowns are put in a cellblock with half-a-dozen 6’-8” tall, 350 pound Bulgarians named Lyubomir who lost their entire life savings in an insurance scam. Payback is a you-know-what, isn’t it.

My NFL thoughts for Week 6:

The Detroit Lions still have not won a football game. They could have at least tied a game on Sunday had their quarterback not given up a ridiculous safety to the Minnesota Vikings. Note to Dan Orlovsky; that 12 inch thick bright white line at the back of the end zone, that’s out of bounds.

It is possible that Matt Ryan might just be a pretty good quarterback.

Same *bleep*, different day for the Raiders. Is it possible that the coach wasn’t/isn’t the problem in Oakland? Can we get the commissioner to fire Al Davis?

The Dallas Cowboys are teetering on the brink of disaster. After a crushing overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals on a blocked punt in overtime, the Cowboys informed the media that superstar quarterback and Mr. Jessica Simpson, Tony Romo, broke the pinky finger on his throwing hand and will be out for at least the next four weeks. Today (Tuesday) Goodell announced he is suspending perennial disaster Adam Jones for four games as a result of an altercation involving Jones and his own private security guards. Add that to the loss of their other starting cornerback, their punter, a volatile Terrell Owens and an offensive line that suddenly seems incapable of blocking Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton and you have the makings of the 2005 Philadelphia Eagles. Loaded with talent, loaded with drama, devoid of the hardware.

Congratulations to the Rams on notching their first victory against the bewildering Washington Redskins Sunday afternoon. Washington looked almost as bad as the Giants looked against Cleveland on Monday night. How on earth does New York go from lighting up the 1-3 Seahawks for 44 points to giving up 35 to the 1-3 Browns? All of a sudden a division many thought would send three teams to the playoffs will be lucky to have a division winner decided before the final game of the season. Oh, and we can stop this Eli Manning is better than Peyton Manning garbage now, right?

Aaron Rodgers ain’t bad. Brett Favre’s still better.

If the Saints only had a defense...

My Superbowl picks for Week 6: Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Indianapolis Colts

I just saw a television commercial for the Hulk on DVD. The tag line was, “...it’s every bit as good as Ironman...” Really? If that was the case, wouldn’t the commercials for Ironman be claiming it was every bit as good as the Hulk?

According to people who have nothing better to do than compile these statistics, the United States has the fortieth most stable banking system in the world. Right behind Namibia. Fortunately, Canada has the world’s most stable banking system. So if things get really bad here we can simply declare Canada a state sponsor of terrorism, pencil them in on the Axis of Evil list, invade the country and claim the banking system for ourselves. That’s got to cost less than $700 billion, right?

Finally, Vibe Magazine named Detroit rap artist Eminem the “best rapper alive” yesterday. Now I’m no authority on rap music, but I’m pretty sure there are several rappers I’m aware of who would eat him for lunch with some barbeque and a fifth of gin. I suppose it depends on how one defines the term “best rapper.” Perhaps simply being able to see a rapper from your window is enough to qualify one for the award.