2008 LIVE

Since we've paid big for our seats, we might as well sit back and enjoy the show !!

SNL as the...

...predictor of the future. Well I'm kind of hoping so, anyway.

If McCain/Palin win, I predict they'll have to live through the infamy of a nation going down in flames, with a wider gap between rich and poor than ever before, and no more bogeymen to hide the results behind. Could be the worst domestic presidency ( on top of the worst international presidency under Dubya) since Andrew Johnson tried to re-fight the Civil War that James Buchanan created.

And Canada will get another wave of intelligent American immigrants with money and smarts and a new appreciation for the sanity of a hand-operated cellulose-based Diebold and a minority parliament.

Canada can't lose.

Mo Dowd on tanning beds

Is also pretty funny this morning...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/opinion/17dowd.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Selling Sarah

It really is just a choice about actors.

Not surprising really... especially considering that for the last fifty years or so we have grown up in a world that has been marketed to us.

Down to the very last trivial detail.

That's about all our system is good at these days: marketing stuff.

The sell job.

The false promise.

But it's lousy at the coming through part.

We been conditioned/distracted by advertising to not think about what may happen "afterwards"....after we buy something....the quality of the thing once we get it home...if it actually will work effectively....you know, in the real world.

This is our culture now, so no surprise...ergo....our politics.

Sooooo....

Palin is being marketed one way.

McCain another.

And Obama another.

Hopefully one day before it's too late , we'll wake up and stop buying all this stuff.

I agree with Lynn - it's a

I agree with Lynn - it's a choice from a cast of actors. They've all become caricatures of the narratives they've constructed in order to market themselves, whether it's McCain flogging his heroism or Obama faking his ghetto-talk.

I also agree with the author's point that Biden is the real what's-his-name. From a distance he actually looks just like Bob Barker of The Price is Right. His selection confirms that Obama himself his critics on some level.

Interestingly, I think Sarah Palin is the only one on either ticket who knows exactly who she is. People are responding to that. I wouldn't say her personal life is "tabloid worthy" - that's a fabrication of the media (like the media-manufactured legend that Trig is actually her grandson). The media has really soiled itself in the anti-Palin hysteria it's whipping up.

And regardless of his original meaning or intent, Obama is going to pay for the "pig with lipstick" slur. I was literally shocked to silence when I watched it. His whole gestalt during the lead-up to the remark and when he actually uttered it tells me that he knew he was 'saying wrong'. Every culturally aware white woman is the U.S. knows the pig and pork references that African-American men have long used as a trope to objectify "un-kosher" white female "meat". African-Americans got the nudge and the wink...but so did most white women too, such was its transparency. That's gonna cost him.

But getting back to Palin, I think what really gets the dander up of the liberal-left is that here is a woman who really did manage to have it all regardless of the dogmatic oppression narratives of identity politics. I also detect a perverse sub-text in liberal-left treatment of the Trig story - is it possible they secretly despise her for failing to abort her disabled son? There's a flavour and a whiff of that sort of black-heartedness in some liberal perspectives on Palin. The stiking absence of children with Down Syndrome is mute testimony to the reality that aborting them is now an accepted norm in modern society (and certainly a norm for the medical establishment). Perhaps it is even seen by some as a citizen's duty to the welfare state, like those who believe there are "too many children". Lots of people find that repellent, unethical and deeply immoral, and are going to vote for someone that walks their walk.

As far as Palin not knowing the Bush Doctine, that was a trick question. There have been several iterations of the Bush Doctine, and the version explained by the interviewer was not the Bush Doctine as it is currently used and understood.

In short, a lot of women are seeing how unfair Palin is being treated, and are taking it to heart. I think female (esp. white female) voting behaviour is going to make for some very interesting post-election analyses regardless of which ticket ends up winning the election.

That should have read:

(Biden's) selection confirms that Obama himself believes his critics on some level.

Hillary Clinton was never my

Hillary Clinton was never my favourite, although I've spoken both positively and negatively about her various qualities when she was under discussion on these threads. My take on her is more or less in line with Camille Paglia's (i.e. Hillary is a formidable political animal, but is far too perverse for words). I'm not sure where you get these notions sometimes.

No, Obama's anti-Palin slur was a deliberate attempt to tap (in a not-so-oblique way) a visceral racial trope. He knew it, and the gleeful audience members knew it. Both Obama and Biden made similar lipstick references in their respective speeches on that day. I think Obama is getting tired (he looks and sounds incredibly exhausted) and thought it was a harmless rhetorical allusion. The fact that he *seems* to have failed to realize what a potent and racially-charged slap that was only reinforces the appraisal that he is divorced from the typical African-American experience. The fact that the mainstream liberal feminist establishment greeted it with strained silence indicates they felt it too, but they are too beholden to make it an issue with so much at stake.

If I were a Democrat I would

If I were a Democrat I would be very, very worried at Obama's persistent inability to pull ahead of *anyone* in this protracted electoral obstacle course, especially given the incredible mess the Republicans have wraught over the past eight years. You'd think with a leg-up like that, Obama would be sailing into the White House with scarcely an effort (which is what he seems to have prepared for). It's a little troubling. The man is underperforming and seems to lack the sheer stamina and will of his opponent, who is geriatric and war-wounded, yet showing far more tenacity, spunk and perseverence. I think McCain is going to kick the snot out of Obama in any non-media-rigged debate, and that Palin - with her Alaskan vigour and frontier fecundity (so offensive to the barren left) - is going to walk off the set with Biden's "Bob Barker" testicles (if he doesn't have another aneurysm beforehand, that is).

Colbert and Fey

Dream ticket:

Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert

the CABERETS meine fruend

ya,just like germany going down the tubes and the only ones laughing were the intellectuals bar hopping and drowning their sorrows,because there was nothing they/anyone could do.

they say when a civilization dies,like the roman empire,some one is always on stage performing,they had NERO back then and we got SNL.

and i was so sure GW BUSH was the end of the world !

oh well! anyone wanna dance ?

nightbloom

Palin as VP was fun for the Republicans for a week but now reality is setting in.

As for Palin being confused by the Bush Doctrine question she had better start studying or she's going to be Biden's lunch in the VP debate.

Obama is going to beat McCain whether the "Deer Hunting with Jesus" folks all turn out or not.

Frank, the outcome is far

Frank, the outcome is far from certain at this point. Your over-confidence in your saviour's chances for victory sounds like 'whistling past the graveyard' to me.

The man is exhausted and burnt out already. I suspect the debates will be far more telling than any set-piece teleprompted speech Obama's handlers and the biased media can devise.

Who are you talking about?

The man is exhausted and burnt out already.

Given the general tenor of your remarks, you'd seem to be referring to OBAMA...

The fact of the matter is that it's McCain who is on his last legs.

And that's the problem - if McCain/Palin somehow manage to get elected (and given the fact the Borg all appear to have drunk the Kool-aid on Palin as being 'ready' for anything that's not as remote a possibility as it should be) the fact the old fella can't seem to keep a single idea in his head for more than a couple of hours is a real concern.

A George Bush presidency has been a bad dream for America and the world - A Palin presidency would be a nightmare.

Obama, btw, seems to me to be one of the 'great' extemporaneous speakers...I hope, in the Biden/Palin debate that you'll count the number of times she uses the Christian name of whomever is questioning her in her answer.

I'll be watching the Canadian debate. I’m looking forward to Stephen Harper’s explanation that Canada is wracked by crime when in fact crime rates are declining steadily.

nightbloom

My saviour?

That would explain why I've been saying for months that the people he's got as advisers send the wrong signal and that regardless of all the great speeches he's probably another Chicago-School president. America's "Paul Martin".

But the fact is I don't see Palin the way you seem to. She's a shooting star type, good headlines for a moment but over the long term she just doesn't have it and I believe most Americans will find the thought of her being VP scary.

As for McCain being able to sell himself as the "new guy", the "agent of change", sure, maybe in bizarro world but I have enough faith in Americans that they will see through that charade.

So sure, you can call me over-confident if I can say you're pulling the wool over your own eyes.

nightbloom

Part of the media has been very negative about Palin but then part of the media was very negative about Obama too.

To me the difference is that over the long term and under a lot of very close scrutiny, Obama proved himself to be a serious candidate, I don't think Palin will do the same.

If Obama was a shooting star he would have fizzled out long ago but he didn't, he was able to defeat Clinton and the other pretenders.

Do you think Palin could have done the same? Beaten McCain and Guiliani et al? I don't think so, they would have ripped her apart in the primaries.

She's very popular with the Republican base right now but do you really think she's going to attract swing voters? Especially women? I don't.

I think the McCain-Palin ticket is at its high-water mark.

nightbloom

Mao-esque?

If it was Obama's 17 year old daughter I'd be getting 20 chain emails a day on the topic about how its proof the godless, anti-family types are taking over and we all have to rise up.

The Right would sell Palin to the Russians if it could get something like that on Obama in return.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that because I think Obama turned aside her attacks quite well and refused to engage in gutter politics.

Only after the nomination was for all intents and purposes sealed up as there would be no point to it.

The fact remains, Obama has been in the public eye for a year and emerged largely unscathed. I don't think Palin will be able to survive even two months without her numbers among female swing voters falling dramatically.

I don't care and it's beside the point

You're the one who posted this, remember?

But you gotta admit, Obama has been treated by the media as the Annointed One, whereas its treatment of Palin has been breathtakingly hostile and misogynist.

All I asked for was a little evidence - and I provided an argument for the reciprocal of the case you're trying to make. You've simply ignored that and returned instead with a personal dig. Why?

As for facebook nonsense, I agree - but since the information is out there - again, I'd argue, as a result of Palin's own actions, then it is patently unfair to make a case for how wonderful she is without taking note of the 'facts'.

The fact of the matter is that it's the right wing press and people like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck, among others, who can't stop treating anyone of a liberal frame of mind like a cockroach deserving of no consideration, fairness or good sense.

If the quality of the discourse troubles you, look to those avenues, the ones that seem bent upon treating anyone to the left of Attila the Hun as the plague.

I'd say Sarah Palin and her crude racism fit right in with that gang...what I can't understand is why any thinking American or Canadian can't see that.

The point is that the right wing voter - and the liberal-hating press - doesn't have enough class to realize how utterly hypocritical they're being.

That's the only point I was trying to make and your current response indicates to me that you don't 'get it' either.

How about if the ideological

How about if the ideological left just put it's money where it's mouth is and left Sarah Palin's uterus, Bristol's uterus, and both of their reproductive lives in the private sphere. It has nothing to do with the issues. And neither does hockey-muffin's facebook. I swear, the left is totally losing its composure over McCain's surprise pick. It's been a continual stream of nonsense and innuendo from the liberal-left ever since the Palin choice was first announced. If she's such a bad pick, then why are all of you wetting your knickers and running scared, babbling inanities, obscenities, and insanities?

Sorry but it won't wash

I don't think it's the left that is losing its composure..

You still haven't addressed the fundamental point here that the treatment of Sarah Palin and her family is exhibit 1 of the double standard of the right - and especially the loony fundamentalist right...

You brought up the argument that she is being treated unfairly in comparison with the handling Obama's had from the press and the right wing. But you overlooked all of the following: The accusation he’s trying to push sex ed in kindergarten; have you forgotten the 'madrassa' controversy; failed to recall the secret Moslem accusations; the uppity negro arguments, the elitist barbs, the slanging of his wife..the notion he's not a 'real' American. I could go on.

Just for half a moment imagine what the loony right would be saying if one of Obama’s kids were pregnant – Hell, imagine what they’d have said if he even announced the fact.

C'mon my friend, where's your objectivity?

from Charles Blow

It turns out that the Republican enthusiasm for Sarah Palin is just as superficial as she is. They were so eager for someone to cheer for (because they really don’t like you) that they dove face first into the Palin mirage. But, on the issues, even they worry about her.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this week 77 percent of Republicans said that they had a favorable opinion of Palin. But when asked what specifically they liked about her, their top five reasons were that she was honest, tough, caring, outspoken and fresh-faced. Sounds like a talk-show host, not a vice president. (By the way, her intelligence was in a three-way tie for eighth place, right behind “I just like her.”)

When those Republicans were asked what they liked least about her, they started to sound more like everyone else. Aside from those who said that there was nothing they didn’t like, next on the list were: her lack of experience, her record as governor and her lack of foreign-policy experience.

Also, most Republicans think you only picked her to help with the election, not because she is qualified, and a third said that they would be “concerned” if for some reason she actually had to serve as president.

And Palin is proving to be just as vacant as people suspected. In her interview with Charles Gibson last week, she didn’t know what the Bush doctrine was. At your first joint town hall meeting with her in Michigan on Wednesday, in front of an invitation-only crowd of Republicans no less, she dodged substantive questions about the issues as if they were sniper fire, while issuing a faux challenge to the audience to play a game of “stump the candidate”. Seriously?

Many of your supporters will no doubt cry sexism. Fine with me. But that defense rings hollow. I find many of them to be sexist. Fresh-faced? Delegates on the floor of the Republican National Convention wearing buttons like “Hoosiers for the hot chick”?

Seriously.

My last word on the subject.

Humour Break

Since this article began with a work of political satire, I thought I'd end my stint on this thread with this hilarious little clip (linked by Paul Wells). It's a Canadian commercial criticizing the Harper Government's cuts to arts & culture programs, but it takes a few oblique but side-splitting jabs at "official" Canadian ersatz-culture (including official bilingualism, as well as some english-Canadian cultural neuroses). It's clever, and bears watching a few times. Some spicey language.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=tFbbwEtrsa8

More Palin humour

The New York Times has had a go at Palin on more than one instance.

The following funny read links to a Maurreen Dowd Op Ed piece. I could easily see and hear The West Wing's President Bartlet and Senator Obama in my mind's eye and ear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?em

tina fey

Come on guys, it ain't over till the fat lady sings as far as the election goes.
Sarah Palin madness has struck the world with dolls, SNL skits, which are always great.
I admit my love/hate relationship with the U.S. has taken up a lot of my precious time in trying to figure out why the Americans vote for such jerks. George Carlin once said the people deserve who they vote for. Perhaps it's all of Society that has given up trying to change the World for the better. I havn't. I'm rooting for Obama anyway.

check out the sarah palin humour here

about.com is doing a good job of collecting the stuff.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/sarahpalin/ig/Sarah-Palin-Cartoons/Bridge-to-Somewhere.-Uq6.htm