I feel great. Things are looking great for the first time in a long time. The polls have never looked better (up in Florida?!). The voter registration numbers are off the hook. Sarah Palin looks destined for disaster in tomorrow's debate. With every upward tick in a tracking poll, with every superb performance by Barack in a Presidential debate, my confidence in the inevitability of 2008 grows.
But what really is inevitable? This is inevitable.
I just watched all the Sunday morning talk shows and one overriding theme emerged. Nearly everyone, Democrat or Republican, that got up and talked about our current economic crisis largely blamed the lack of oversight and regulation. Let me repeat that.
The emerging consensus is that a lack of meaningful oversight and regulation over the financial services and mortgage industries is now causing us to socialize both industries and put at risk at least $1 trillion of taxpayer money to bail it out.
In light of this, the choice for President in this coming election has now become absolutely and unarguably clear. McCain has spent his nearly three decades in Washington being aided and abetted by Phil Gramm and his cronies in push through every possible measure to keep the financial and mortgage industries from being subject to meaningful oversight and regulation.
[McCain's] record … suggest[s] that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation... [H]e has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator [yet] he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms. McCain has always been in his party’s mainstream on the [economic] issue. In early 1995 … McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds. 'I’m always for less regulation,' he told The Wall Street Journal last March…. 'I am fundamentally a deregulator.'
The bottom line: John McCain's loving embrace of the fundamental Republican dogma of "deregulation, deregulation, deregulation" has caused the worst financial crisis in American history since the Great Depression.
John McCain, Phil Gramm and their Republican cohorts got us into this mess. It would be, at this point in history, absolutely and profoundly wrong for the American people to reward John McCain's failure by electing him to lead the world's biggest economy.
Period.
There is no more room for debate. None.
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This is the video library that we need to circulate far and wide to highlight how wrong John McCain has been (and will be) on the economy:
Obama Campaign on McCain's Disgraced Economic Advisers:
Obama Campaign on McCain's belief that the "Fundamentals of the Economy are Strong":
It was just four months ago that the call went out on these pages for supporters to join Food Tasters for Obama. Now some wise-guys (here, here and here) are suggesting that it’s John McCain who should hire a food taster. It is an idea even he has toyed with.We don’t believe that he needs to or will do so. But just for fun we’ve devised the following Letterman-like Top Ten Reasons Why John McCain Will NOT Hire Food Tasters.
10. He doesn't know how to post a job opening on Monster.com
9. Republicans would consider him an "elitist"
8. His high dosage of Metamucil already flushes all toxins from his body
7. Sarah Palin would fire them and replace them with Wasilla High School grads
6. He’s not sure where they would sit in the mess hall
5. The deaths of Socrates, Napoleon and Lenin were covered in courses he failed at Annapolis
4. He loves to gamble with dice, VP selections and, of course, with his health
3. You don't eat barracuda – it eats you
2. Lipstick (just had to mention that, because it seems to be on everyone’s lips lately)
And finally, the number one reason McCain will not hire food tasters:
1. He doesn’t need to because on November 4 Barack Obama will eat his lunch
The McCain campaign has kept up the drumbeat for weeks now charging Barack Obama would raise your taxes, even though they leave out the fact that this only applies to those who make over $250,000. They also don't mention that those are the same people who were the only real beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts.
Well Johnnie Mac's tax claims are effectively moot now that the Bush Administration has stepped in to salvage Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (no relation to the candidate, except that neither can keep track of how many houses they own). For overnight, the Treasury has levied a whopper of a tax, except instead of sending you a bill you have to pay from you checking account by April 15, they have just gone ahead and charged it to your credit card and left it to the next guy to work out payment terms.
Okay. Before the campaign gets really serious again, here is your chance to vote for Sarah Palin -- that is for the best impersonation.
And there are two really great impersonators too. You may already have seen Saturday Night Live's "A Nonpartisan Message from Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton". In case you missed it, click on the pic for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in their SNL opening skit:
But Tina's got competition! Here name is Lisa Vega (aka Lisa Donovan), who was once featured on MADtv, and she has done three Palin sketches already. The first had her corner Obama on a stairwell as he comes home, and she browbeats him till he turns into the "angry black man"; this may explain why the clip is no longer available. But her parental guidance skit called "Is McCain Palin's Bitch?" is already a YouTube classic, and showcases the other side of Sarah:
You can click on the photo. That's Dan Oster as John MCcain.
So here's your guilt-free chance to vote for Sarah Palin (impersonator, that is). Please cast your vote below in the comment section.
That is the same bill that Republicans blocked in a procedural vote on July 28, of this year. The bill, originally co-sponsored by Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA), was part of a package of health care legislation that Republicans voting along strict party lines blocked from floor action. Despite the 52-40 vote for consideration, supporters fell short of the required 60 vote majority to move the package forward.
Photo: McCain's Vice Presidential running mate Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig Paxson Van Palin, a Down Syndrome baby, on April 18.
Many people over the last several months have asked me why I am so worked up over this election. Prior to November of last year, I had switched off any interest in politics and hadn't much cared about national elections for, oh, something like 10+ years. My answer to the question always involves two important elements.
The first element of my answer is my enthusiasm for Barack Obama as a person and a candidate. Once I took the time to research and learn more about him, I saw in Obama one of the most fundamentally decent politicians to run for the office of President in recent memory. I found him to be intelligent, engaging, contemplative, honest, forthright and candid -- all qualities that have been so obviously missing over the last eight years. Listening to him speak and reading what he wrote sold me on his story, his commitment to this great country, and his fundamental decency and quality of character. However, my enthusiasm for Barack Obama as a candidate is only one aspect to why I am so passionate about this election.
The second and perhaps more passion-inspiring aspect to my enthusiasm for electing Obama is my deep-seated need for the American electorate to say "Enough!" to all of the terrifying qualities that we have seen infect and and spread throughout our communities and government over these past eight years. Above nearly every other consideration on the table at this point, I desperately need to see America send up a powerful and resounding rebuke to the tone, tenor and ideology underpinning one of the most necrotic, corrupt and incompetent administrations in American history.
You may call me naïve for saying this but I yearn to wake up one day and not be afraid to learn what my government has done in my name. I am profoundly tired of waking up to learn that our country has unconstitutionally exceeded the powers of the executive branch, tortured terrorism suspects, illegally populated the Justice Department with people whose primary qualification was the sufficiency of their partisanship, mishandled domestic national disasters resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, obstinately refused to address climate change, illegally revealed the identity of a covert CIA agent, used hatred and fear of gays and lesbians to scare up votes in an election season, stymied research into embryonic stem cells based on religious faith alone, instituted a Pentagon propaganda campaign to sell an unjustified war, invaded a country that never participated in an attack on American soil and never posed an existential threat to our national security, and pathologically lied to the American people about every matter, large or small -- with all of these acts done in our name without a shred of meaningful accountability brought to bear upon any of the misguided criminals involved in their perpetration.
To put it mildly, I am ashamed, and profoundly so. Nearing as I am the age of 32, you'd think that my shame and cynicism would have led me to give up on any hope for honesty and competence in my elected leaders -- and for a while, I had. However, I see in Obama a golden opportunity (perhaps the last one we'll have in a long, long while) to forcefully cast off the last eight years of unchecked lies, misdirection, corruption, misinformation, illegality and incompetence.
As Obama himself has admitted, he is of course an imperfect messenger -- just as any person seeking the most powerful office in the world would be. However, this election means much more to me than just electing a person to fill a role -- it can also mean that we, as Americans, have borne witness to the evil that has been done in our name and have decided to forcefully and unequivocally declare that we will stand for it no longer!
With the two primary aspects to my passion for electing Obama being laid out above, please permit me go one step further and explain one of the main ways this passion gets channeled on a day-to-day basis.
I have gone through most of my life in a position of relatively comfortable middle-class privilege. My stepfather was a college professor and my mother an accomplished artist and homemaker. My sisters and I generally didn't want for anything. I came out of the closet in high school at the tender age of 13 and was lucky enough to grow up in a loving family that accepted me fully for who I was. Coming out so early, however, left my still-forming psyche fully exposed to the harsh winds of a culture and society that is still too often prone to demonizing gays and lesbians for no reason other than the gender of the person they choose to love.
I became involved in politics and activism during my teen years in the small town of Eugene, Oregon during an unfortunate episode in our state's history when a radical right-wing organization called the Oregon Citizen's Alliance successfully placed an initiative on the statewide ballot in 1992 called Measure 9 that would have revised the Oregon constitution to read:
All governments in Oregon may not use their monies or properties to promote, encourage or facilitate homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism or masochism. All levels of government, including public education systems, must assist in setting a standard for Oregon's youth which recognizes that these behaviors are abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse and they are to be discouraged and avoided.
To this day, reading the language of Measure 9 still brings tears to my eyes. To my teenage mind, it was one thing to understand that certain people in my country and community with antiquated medieval morality hadn't yet evolved to the point that they could accept me for who I am. It was quite another thing, however, for the people of my state and local community to be voting on a constitutional amendment to permanently and explicitly stigmatize me in the highest law of the state as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse".
Thankfully, Measure 9 failed, but only by a margin of 44% in favor to just 56% opposed. As I look back on it, I think this was the first concrete time in my life when I truly sat back and thought, "Dear God, there is an enormous percentage of the population out there for whom ignorance and gullibility is a virtue and who are capable of using their ignorance as a sword to strike out and try to hurt other people, and the country, with their vote!" This general realization about the fundamental nature of a large portion of the electorate eventually drove me into a self-induced fog of anger and cynicism that was only more strongly reinforced by America's reelection of George W. Bush after much of the information that has recently driven his approval ratings into the low 20s was already evident.
The upshot of all this background information is how it reflects on my outlook today. Although I labored in a fog of anger and cynicism for 15-odd years, it wasn't enough to completely kill off my hope for an episodic emergence of the inherent goodness in people that I never stopped believing in. I still fundamentally believe that a large majority of people in this country and around the world have, at their core, a well of goodness that can be easily shrouded by any number of suppressive factors, i.e., abuse, privation, religious fundamentalism, divorce, deaths in the family, etc. Although all-too-often lying dormant, the shroud covering this inherent goodness within us is periodically peeled back to allow for radical, transformative change, e.g., abolishing slavery, giving women the right to vote and ending segregation.
Over the last seven or more years, the shroud covering many of our better instincts was metastasized by, among other things, the tragic events of 9/11. Too many of us retreated into our cocoons and gave our government free reign to run roughshod over many of the rights we hold dear and slaughter tens of thousands of innocent civilians in order exact vengeance upon a shadowy and intangible threat that emerged from a world to which we often pay far too little attention and spend little time trying to understand.
Owing much to our lust for vengeance and a profane President and his administration that, unchecked by any authority, has taken every opportunity to knowingly and vigorously violate the cherished morals, ethics, values, laws and international standards we once held so dear, we are now at a precipitous crossroads in our country's history. This is not just a fight against the poisonous depravity of the Bush administration, this is also a fight against our lesser instincts, our apathy and our complicity in what our government has become. It is not enough to simply write off the last eight years as the result of some compartmentalized bad actor and his cronies occupying and mismanaging the White House. We must systematically, and with great wisdom and purpose, reject and denounce the entire paradigm of accepting the presentation of falsehoods from those who would seek to govern us, justifying the torture of prisoners as an evil means toward a noble end, and cavalierly relinquishing the rights and freedoms for which so many brave souls have fought and spilled their blood over the centuries of our proud country's history.
In this election, the Republican candidate for President has embraced and expanded upon all of the worst instincts and tactics that drove our current President into the White House. With every new day, John McCain and his surrogates have proven in new and creative ways how much contempt they possess for concepts such as honesty, dignity, integrity, candor, humility and compassion. It is not enough to get angry about the fact that they put out jaw-droppingly obvious lies and misdirection on a daily basis. We must dig deeper and fight the very premise that underlies their shameful and dishonorable tactics: the idea that selling lies to the American electorate will work because we are too stupid, comfortable, uninformed and apathetic to realize that they are deceiving us! The next time you hear a McCain surrogate parrot talking points that falsely accuse Obama of wanting to raise taxes on people making $42,000 per year or claim that McCain is not, and has not always been, 100% committed to criminalizing abortion, dig below your righteous anger and react more strongly to the fact that we are responsible for giving them the impression that they can shamelessly peddle their lies with impunity. The stakes are too high in this election, and the challenges we face are too great, to simply leave this despicable premise unchallenged.
Fighting John McCain's dishonorable underlying premise does not just involve simply going to the ballot box and voting for Barack Obama on November 4th; it requires a much greater commitment than that. In past elections, when faced with an uninformed friend or relative that promulgates a new lie du jour that emanated from a surrogate of the opposing campaign, many of us have all too often held our tongues in order to avoid making waves or having others think less of us. This needs to end, quickly.
We have a civic duty, at this point in our country's history, to become properly informed about the facts underlying all of the main issues circulating in your family and community and, when faced with a lie promulgated by the McCain campaign, not only speak out forcefully, with limitless respect and patience, against the particular lie under discussion but also enter into a discussion of McCain's underlying premise. The impact of refuting a lie will always be less significant than helping someone come to realize that the systemic pattern of lies and misdirection put out by the McCain campaign presupposes that we are all too stupid, comfortable, uninformed and apathetic to realize that they are deceiving us.
I know that, like me, your view of national elections and politicians has all-too-often sprouted from a fertile bed of cynical cop-outs, e.g., picking the lesser of two evils, thinking that your vote doesn't count, believing that all politicians are just craven liars and discounting the election because it doesn't matter who you choose because they'll all screw you over anyway. At this moment in history -- when we are faced with record oil prices coupled with an ever-dwindling, non-expandable supply of fossil fuels, an economy with sectors not far off from permanent systemic failure and a standing and moral authority in the world worse than at any point in the last century -- we cannot allow ourselves to take false comfort in these reassuring, emotionally protective clichés.
The polluted nature of the McCain campaign and its occasional temporary successes, achieved using dishonorable means, must not flag our resolve or beat us back from facing every attack with every last shred of energy we can muster. At the risk of hyperbole, I truly believe that there are fundamental virtues at stake in this election that John McCain and his surrogates have chosen to both ignore and defile: honesty, dignity, integrity, candor, humility and compassion, to name but a few. Dig back to a time in your youth when you yearned with every fiber of your naïve and unspoiled being to be a defender of Truth, a person of integrity and a defender of the helpless and infirm. Find the passion you once felt, channel it back into the present day and let it give you succor on days like today, when it feels like the enemy advances and the headwinds against your struggle are too great. In the end, we must do everything we can muster to ensure that Truth -- absolute, objective and immutable Truth -- and timeless Virtue prevail against the forces of inertia and cynicism that have kept us chained in our self-shackled prisons for far too long.
Assuming this comes to pass, I wonder if McCain's pick of Palin was a shrewd "cover your ass" move, designed to shield himself from the full brunt of his party's anger if he loses the election.
This is my thinking: After Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and lost the election, a large amount of the scorn levied against the ticket, rightly or wrongly, was that Ferraro and her unearthed scandals and lack of qualifications sank whatever chance he had of winning. Consider the following conventional wisdom that emerged after the dust settled on the 1984 campaign -- the parallels to the McCain/Palin ticket are uncanny:
"At the outset the "Ferraro factor" brought glamour and energy to Mondale's rather staged, lacklustre image and plodding campaign. Shortly after the convention, however, controversy erupted about her personal finances. Her reputation was damaged by revelations of tax avoidance, shady business dealings, and possible Mafia connections of her husband, John Zaccaro. There were also allegations that Ferraro herself had been involved in financial impropriety in respect of her 1978 campaign funds. The ensuing scandal doomed the Mondale -- Ferraro ticket." (emphasis mine)
If McCain ends up losing and people don't register the fact that the full blame lies on McCain for thrusting such an unknown and unqualified running mate onto the ticket, I wonder if much of the blame will come to rest on Sarah Palin and all of the various reasons that make her phenomenally unqualified for the job.
Is this a move that McCain caculated to save some of his reputation after the election?
As the furor over all of the new revelations about how little Sarah Palin was vetted by the McCain campaign builds, I just heard Republican South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford on MSNBC offer the latest potential lame excuse for why McCain didn't vet her properly:
Any of us as public figures have a public record and a public life. So, the fact is, she's been vetted by the people of Alaska and is walking around with 80% approval ratings... So there's been a lot of vetting going on but maybe not in the sense you're talking about.
You've got to be kidding me, right? What he's basically saying is that McCain doesn't have to vet Sarah Palin thoroughly because she has high approval ratings? Really?
Inspired by his observation of the Chinese Government’s efficient management of the Olympics, George Bush has evidently returned to Washington full of exciting ideas he hopes will ensure John McCain’s victory in November.And there is some evidence suggesting that some of the Chinese tactics have already found their way into John McCain’s 2008 Presidential election campaign.
Like those intimidating Chinese drummers in the opening ceremonies who were instructed to smile, John McCain has been smiling a lot in his own public performances.But his handlers, worried about invidious comparison with Barack Obama, are not taking chances. Like the sweet little girl who was also in the opening ceremony, they will train McCain to lip-sync his acceptance speech while the words are spoken by one of his movie star supporters.But it is not yet clear however which of McCain’s prominent thespian endorsers' characters will provide the voice.So far, the three nominees in the category of Nominating Acceptance Speech are: Clint "Dirty Harry" Eastwood, Sylvester "Rocky" Stallone and Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger.
But none of the Chinese measures has excited Republicans as much as the “passport solution”. The GOP is taking its cue from China’s women’s gymnastics team, which was able to demonstrate that its athletes met the International Olympic Committee’s 16-year old age requirement by presenting Chinese passports. So they are applying for a new passport that McCain can present as his government issued photo ID. It will address concerns of some voters who believe McCain is too old by showing that he is only 35.That will both meet the Constitution’s minimum age requirement and should reassure voters that he could easily serve two full terms as President.As an added bonus for those constitutional scholars who question if McCain meets the Consitution’s “natural-born” requirement because of his birth in Panama, the passport will list his place of birth (POB) as Panama City, Florida. Problem solved.
wizinit is the nom de guerre of a veteran diplomat and fan of the late columnist Art Buchwald who writes serious analysis and political satire. If you would like to be notified whenever wizinit posts a new article click on the logo to join Food Tasters For Obama.
Back in February, I warned about the hyperbole coming from the Clinton campaign about Kosovo's declaration of independence. I argued it would set "a new precedent for a potentially explosive series of other pro-Russian areas of the Caucusus to declare independence, such as Transdniestr from Moldova, or South-Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia." And I applauded the more cautious and even-handed Obama campaign statement.
Interestingly, the events in Georgia are offering a new chance to contrast foreign policy approaches:
Obama’s statement put him in line with the White House, the European Union, NATO and a series of European powers, while McCain’s initial statement[...] put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term.
A McCain adviser suggested that Obama’s statement constituted appeasement, while Obama’s camp suggested that McCain was being needlessly belligerent and dangerously quick to judge a complicated situation.
“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict,” Obama said in a written statement. “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected.”
Obama added briefly that the international community should get involved. More than an hour later, as more details of Russia’s incursion into Georgia emerged, he cited Russia more directly: “What is clear is that Russia has invaded Georgia’s sovereign — has encroached on Georgia’s sovereignty,” he told reporters in Sacramento.
McCain’s statement was longer, more detailed and more confrontational.
"[T]he news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.
“The government of Georgia has called for a ceasefire and for a resumption of direct talks on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should immediately work with the EU and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course that it has chosen.”
Over the last few days the McCain camp has started to get desperate with all the good news for Obama. So what does a campaign run by the architect of negative campaigning do?
Do some good 'ole negative campaigning of course. Here's a recap.
Today I received the following email, presumably anticipating Obama’s August 4 birthday:
“Does anyone know, what is Senator Obama's favorite kind of cake? Please let us know. Thank you.David”
As a result of David’s inquiry and for the benefit of all those with similar questions, I’ve compiled most of the reliable information about Barack’s eating habits.It’s not easy sorting through all the phony facts on the internet sites where they ask: “What is Obama’s favorite food”. There are lots of pranksters on the loose.I did chuckle at the Republican who claimed Obama’s favorite is “waffle,” but there are a lot of racist jokers with puerile and predictable suggestions, like KFC, fried chicken and watermelon.
So here’s the scoop. According to the NY Times of May 27, his personal assistant during the campaign, Reggie Love, revealed:
Senator Obama “eats pretty much anything, from chicken wings and barbecue and ribs to grilled fish and steamed broccoli.” But when he is campaigning in a small town with limited options, a cheeseburger is always a good bet. (“Cheddar is the cheese of choice,” Mr. Love added.) He knows that “the boss,” as he calls Mr. Obama, likes MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea. He keeps a supply of both on hand.
Here are other known likes: Planters Trail Mix: Nuts, Seeds & Raisins, Roasted almonds, Pistachios, Water, Dentyne Ice, Nicorette, Vegetables (especially broccoli and spinach), handmade milk chocolates from Fran’s Chocolates in Seattle.
The NY Times reported the candidate’s efforts to quit cigarette smoking included chewing Nicorette gum. One reported side effect of Nicorette is heartburn.
And dislikes: Mayonnaise, Salt and vinegar potato chips, asparagus (“if no other vegetables are available, he’ll eat it”), and Soft drinks.
In response David’s specific question though, here’s what Obama McCain Comparisons says (which appears to give you carte blanche in deciding what to bake for the big day):
“According to Obama’s daughters he doesn’t like sweets so much... he does like pumpkin pie.”
This same site as well as others claim that based on an interview on January 18 of this year Obama’s favorite restaurant is Italian Fiesta Pizzeria in Hyde Park, Chicago, IL.The website tried, but failed to identify Obama’s favorite toppings.This restaurant is known for its thin crust pizza and spreading toppings to the edge of the pie. His view on where he likes to eat appears to be one position Obama has not changed since he clinched the Democratic nomination.
Obama apparently also enjoys shrimp and grits, though it is not clear if that is a home-made or eat-out dish.
One thing is absolutely clear.Chili is Obama’s favorite food to cook and/or bring to a potluck.In fact, here are his own words and recipe:
“I’ve been using this chili recipe since college and would bring it to any potluck. I can’t reveal all the secrets, but if you make it right, it’s just got the right amount of bite, the right amount of oomph in it and it will clear your sinuses.”
Ingredients: 1 large onion, chopped; 1 green pepper, chopped; Several cloves of garlic, chopped; 1 tablespoon olive oil; 1 pound ground turkey or beef; 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin; 1/4 teaspoon ground oregano; 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric; 1/4 teaspoon ground basil; 1 tablespoon chili powder; 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar; Several tomatoes, depending on size, chopped; 1 can red kidney beans.
Method:
Sauté onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add ground meat and brown. Combine spices together into a mixture then add to ground meat. Add red wine vinegar. Add tomatoes and let simmer, until tomatoes cook down. Add kidney beans and cook for a few more minutes.
Serve over white or brown rice. Garnish with grated cheddar cheese, onions and sour cream.
There you have it. Of course Obama may develop a hearty appetite in the course of this campaign. So maybe after November 4, when asked what Obama likes to eat, you’ll just have to say: “McCain’s lunch!”
wizinit is the nom de guerre of a veteran diplomat and fan of the late columnist Art Buchwald who writes serious analysis and political satire. If you would like to be notified whenever wizinit posts a new article click on the logo to join Food Tasters For Obama.
Obama wipes his forehead at a Montana campaign event in May.
McCain's handlers think they were owned. Photo-analysis suggests that Barack Obama may have been play-acting when he pulled out a hanky and patted his forehead at a campaign appearance in Montana two months ago. And the two lost months may cost McCain the election if the candidate, who is known for his volcanic temper, has a Nixonian moment of perspiration during the Presidential debates this Fall.
It's all part of a game of hot potato that the two camps have been playing, trying to stay cool under the constant glare of media scrutiny. Until today McCain's people believed they were going to win because Obama had fallen for the Republican's challenge to visit Baghdad, where the average high this month is 115 degrees. But then the news reported: "No sweat."
The confirmation was contained in today's AP story about Obama's suspicously frequent workouts, in which photo-journalists were quoted as saying that:
"even when he shot hoops earlier this year with members of the University of North Carolina varsity men's basketball team, they didn't see Obama sweat."
The report has the McCain campaign in a panic, for what was suspected and feared is now confirmed: Obama is cool, literally as well as figuratively. It's not just that he made the cover of Rolling Stone, GQ and Vibe. They knew McCain didn't stand a chance going one-on-one against Obama for the Metromale vote. That was a given. But it's the image of McCain as a sweaty old guy who turns off Hillary Clinton's women voters they were counting on to win that has them worried.
Sources who did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss the sensitive subject confirm that a hush-hush project code-named "Operation Bikram" has been launched from an inconspicuous office at Republican National Committee headquarters. GOP operatives are simultaneously scouring the aisles of drug stores nationwide to find the most effective anti-perspirant and reviewing comparison tests of moisture wicking underwear. Separately a top-secret team of technicians, specialists in heating and cooling, is ready to move in and take over any debate venue that registers above 65 degrees.
These precautions are all intended to manage McCain's known tendency to get hot under the collar at the slightest provocation. And when really provoked McCain is known to breathe fire and sweat bullets. "It's hard to get John to cool off after one of these incidents," says an old family friend. "But that's why he has been so happy with Cindy, becuase he knows that at the end of the day he'll go home to an ice-cold Bud."
wizinit is the nom de guerre of a veteran diplomat and fan of the late columnist Art Buchwald who writes serious analysis and political satire. If you would like to be notified whenever wizinit posts a new article click on the logo to join Food Tasters For Obama.
Inspired by his observation of the Chinese Government’s efficient management of the Olympics, George Bush has evidently returned to Washington full of exciting ideas he hopes will ensure John McCain’s victory in November..jpg)
But none of the Chinese measures has excited Republicans as much as the “passport solution”. The GOP is taking its cue from 
Today I received the following email, presumably anticipating Obama’s August 4 birthday: 
The 
Obama wipes his forehead at a Montana campaign event in May. 
The report has the McCain campaign in a panic, for what was suspected and feared is now confirmed: Obama is cool, literally as well as figuratively. It's not just that he made the cover of Rolling Stone, GQ and Vibe. They knew McCain didn't stand a chance going one-on-one against Obama for the Metromale vote. That was a given. But it's the image of McCain as a sweaty old guy who turns off Hillary Clinton's women voters they were counting on to win that has them worried. 
