Veeps 2008

“Hello Governor Palin, this is Kent at U-Haul on Glacier Hwy. I’m calling to confirm your reservation of a 26′ Super Mover. Can you please call me back at this number if you’re still going to be needing that? Thank you, ma’am.”

I don’t imagine there was any possibility that we could have escaped this election cycle without one of these. There’s always a one-dimensional totem, a stupid prop suitably dumbed-down for the sweatpants and threadbare Bon Jovi tee-shirt crowd in the cheap seats watching six minutes of news spread out over every two days. We expect [...]

Jesus, not again. As if we didn’t learn in 2000 and 2004 to do something about this once and for all. The latest Republican clarion call should make us afraid for the continued functioning of our fragile democracy: The Democrats are trying to steal another election.
Wait. What?
Or so the latest cries of Democratic Party-perpetrated “voter [...]

In football, everyone loves a great Hail Mary pass. The drama, the audacity, a will to win so strong that a team is going to grab every last chance it has to walk away victorious without leaving a thing on the field. If they pull it off, it’s not only a tribute to their fortitude, [...]

Coming from Chicago, Barack Obama should know better: If you try to bring nuance to a knife fight, you’re going to bleed to death.
Time and again during their first debate, Senator Obama was served one Quayle-Bentsen moment after another, and couldn’t bring himself to tee off on his opponent.
If McCain wanted to make the point [...]

Sensationalist photographer Jill Greenberg got herself in a whole mess of controversy last week and lost her paycheck besides when she forced The Atlantic to issue an apology, after Greenberg posted photos from her shoot with Senator John McCain and later boasted that she deliberately directed him into appearing in positions and lighting which she [...]

Remember just a handful or two of months ago where Barack Obama was inspiring US Festival-sized crowds and ruling every magazine cover? Well, those halcyon days are gone. At least they were before I went out for my last cigarette. Check the Friday night lineup at any Indian casino or county fair, and most of [...]

Last night when I was watching footage of the 9/11 attacks, I already knew what Rachel Maddow admitted this afternoon that she knew last night during her new MSNBC program but was prohibited by her bosses from disclosing: That after this one-day truce to honor the victims of that heinous day seven years ago, the [...]

Fortunately, the country hasn’t promised her a Rose Garden yet. Team McCain, Sarah Palin’s advisers, and even many of her Democratic detractors have been deliberately setting the bar low for her these past few weeks, lest she happens to somehow sail over with ease and look like Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Apparently they didn’t set it low enough.
No [...]

Props to John McCain. In a mystifying twist since he picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, he made everyone forget about the skinny upstart from Chicago who used to fill the stadiums and owned the weekly newsmagazine covers. This speaks volumes for the Republican imagemaking and message control, but very poorly [...]