GO VOTE.

That's pretty much it. Go here for election-day funny.

There was something familiar last night

In last night's debate, John McCain's hectoring, condescending tone kept reminding me of something. It wasn't until later that I remembered what it was:


At 0:52, Eddie Murphy makes the face that I imagine Senator Obama wanted to.

That one?

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who heard John McCain call Barack Obama "that one" and thought, what the hell?

For the record, I would not object to Scarlett Johannson calling me "that one." Or simply calling me.

SNL on Scranton

SNL's take on Joe Biden's take on Scranton:

Scranton's take on SNL's take on Joe Biden's take on Scranton:

SNL parody jokingly calls Scranton 'the absolute worst place on earth'

Some of the comments on the article are entertaining, for reasons both intentional and otherwise.

Overcoached

Everyone probably has their own Sarah Palin debate WTF moment. Mine was her list of people supporting McCain -- Lieberman, Giuliani, Romney, Lingle. That's exactly what she said, those last names, without first names or any sort of context or story behind them. People probably know who Lieberman is, and most folks know Giuliani. Nobody knows Romney unless they were really paying attention to the primary campaign that he left in, what, February? And Lingle? Who the hell is Lingle? I am as hardcore a campaign junkie as you will find and it took me a minute to realize she meant Linda Lingle, the Governor of Hawaii, and not my undergrad political parties professor (who I can't imagine would be supporting McCain).

I almost wonder if she knew who she was talking about.

Decline and faceplant

Watching the ongoing train wreck that is the Sarah Palin candidacy, I have to wonder: Has any other VP nominee gone from Muskie to Quayle in such a short period of time?

Time horizons

Roughly put, a time horizon is how far ahead one is planning: Next year, next quarter, next month. An important part of growing up is learning to think in terms of longer time horizons: You can't control what happens this week, but you can make long-term plans that will endure whatever roadblocks flare up. You can also avoid making short-term plans that will hurt you later: If I eat a third helping of dessert, it will taste good now but I'll feel sick later. If I buy that expensive thing I don't need, I'll enjoy playing with it but I won't be able to pay the rent. That sort of thing.

Looking at the McCain campaign, I'm pretty sure we've got a potential president whose time horizon goes to lunchtime tomorrow, tops. It's clear McCain had no endgame for his phony campaign suspension, he simply wanted to grab a bunch of headlines that afternoon. Same thing applies to Sarah Palin: No need to vet her record, the important thing is to pick somebody dramatic! And then that dramatic pick can't match wits with Katie Couric. But, hey, who can think as far ahead as three weeks from the announcement?

Palin the polar bear?

WaPo's Ruth Marcus on the under-noticed Sarah Palin-Sean Hannity interview:

The way she answers questions brings to mind -- I have Alaska on the brain, admittedly -- the image of a polar bear, jumping from rhetorical ice floe to ice floe, drifting some but eventually managing to get safely to dry land. No flubs, but you get the sense that she could plunge into the icy water at any moment. Palin has an odd tendency to use the same word twice in a sentence, as in, “The people of American realize that inherently all political power is inherent in the people,” or, about John McCain, “He can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.” Or, combining word repetition with another Palin verbal tic, word dropping, this about the economic meltdown: “Well, you know, first Fannie and Freddie, different because quasi-government agencies there where government had to step in because the adverse impact all across our nation, especially with homeowners, is just too impacting.”

Too impacting? Are Fannie and Freddie wisdom teeth?

Palin thoughts, serious and otherwise

In no real order:

• As the father of a daughter, I applaud any breaking of the glass ceilings in our society. I am glad that a mediocre female politician has been given the same opportunity that a mediocre male politician would have had in the past.
  
• Palin is not really supposed to appeal to disaffected Clinton supporters or women; she's intended to appeal to the hardcore theocratic right-wing faction of the Republican party. These are the folks who have always been suspicious of or hostile to McCain, and he'd be certain to lose if they stayed home in appreciable numbers on November 4. The question now is whether Palin, who among other things is a creationist, tried to ban books as mayor, is lying about her opposition to the "Bridge to Nowhere" (she was for it before it was convenient for her to be against it), abused her office seeking payback against an estranged relative, and more, is sufficiently nutty as to alienate voters in the middle of the political spectrum.
  
• I suspect she is; in 2004, rallying the base was enough for Bush to eke out a narrow win over Kerry, but that base -- and Republican identification among the electorate -- is much smaller now than it was four years ago.
  
• As Lance notes, it is a mistake to assume Palin is a lightweight. On the other hand, I cannot listen to her without recalling Stuart's mom offering Beavis and Butt-head breakfast burritos.
  
• Imagine for a second that the Obamas had a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter. Now imagine the right-wing freakout over it. Go ahead. Get back to me when you stop screaming for it to stop.
  
• I really figured that Tagg was going to be the weirdest candidate's child's name in 2008.
  

Shocked, yes, SHOCKED

Isn't it amazing how Senator Clinton gave a speech last night that reaffirmed the core principles of her own campaign while criticizing the opposing party's nominee and expressing full-throated support for her party's candidate? Who would have thought that a smart, savvy, and tough politician -- and whatever criticisms I may have made of her during the primary campaign, she is all of those things -- would do exactly what she needed to do in her speech? It's almost like she's a smart, savvy, and tough politician or something.

Scranton

As I watched the prospect of Joe Biden as Obama's running mate get kicked around on cable the last few nights, I was struck by something I noticed during the endless death march that was the Pennsylvania primary. Namely, when did Pennsylvania, and Scranton in particular, become this magical land filled with "regular people"? I was a hardcore political junkie as a teenager -- to the extent that in 1990, my Sunday afternoons revolved around C-SPAN's weekly airing of campaign ads from around the country -- and don't ever recall hearing Scranton invoked as the heart and soul of "regular America." Was it after I left in 1992?

Unfocused linkblogging

Neat stuff I've run across this week:

• Wired profiles Neal Stephenson in advance of his next novel, Anathem.
  
• Take the McCain house tour!
  
• John Scalzi talks about the neurology of emotional reactions to written and visual fiction.
  
• Absolutely nothing has changed in the presidential race. Obama has a small but steady and significant lead. He has had a small but steady and significant lead for months.
  
• More than you ever wanted to know about the novelization of Gremlins, which I'm fairly sure I owned at one point in my preadolescence (which means it's got a good chance of still being in a box in my parents' basement).
  
• The Savage Dragon endorses Obama.
  
• Obama's reshaping the Democratic party.
  
• Bronze medal winners are happier than silver medal winners.
  

Edwards

The more that comes out about the John Edwards scandal, the more disappointed and disgusted I get. What goes on in a marriage is the business of the people in it -- but to act as recklessly and stupidly as Edwards did while running for president, in a campaign that placed Edwards' marriage to Elizabeth Edwards front and center, makes it more than just a private matter. Suffice to say that my support for Edwards was predicated on his not being terminally reckless and stupid.

The only other thing I have to say is that Edwards should consider this advice that was offered to Tom Delay a few years ago and follow the example of the British politician Jack Profumo:

In 1963, a British politician named John D. “Jack” Profumo became embroiled in a scandal when it was revealed that he was having sexual relations with a young woman who was also seeing a Russian diplomat widely acknowledged to be a spy. (The incident was dramatized in the excellent 1989 film “Scandal” starring Ian McKellen as Profumo.)

At first, Profumo denied he was involved with the young woman. But as the evidence mounted, he admitted the affair and resigned his position as secretary of state for war. The scandal rocked the conservative government, leading to the downfall of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

What Profumo did after his resignation is interesting. Unlike the young woman he had been involved with, Profumo didn’t write a book or try to capitalize on his behavior in any way. He maintained a public silence and went to work at a soup kitchen called Toynbee Hall, in London’s gritty East End. (His wife stayed with him and also devoted herself to charitable work.) Eventually, Profumo became the chief fund-raiser for Toynbee Hall. His contacts brought in millions. Independently wealthy, Profumo never accepted a salary from Toynbee.

Profumo died on March 9. Of course the obituaries mentioned the scandal, but all went on to say that Profumo had earned redemption. He was lauded for his service to society. Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford and a well known social reformer who died in 2001, once remarked that he “felt more admiration [for Profumo] than [for] all the men I’ve known in my lifetime.”

There are second acts in American life. But you have to earn them.

Also note: Profumo started out cleaning toilets, and had to be persuaded to use his contacts to fundraise.

I have always liked Jerry Brown

Because he is made of kickass.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "no one" is

In today's column, David Broder wrings his hands and writes of Barack Obama that

No one in recent decades has emerged as the party standard-bearer from so truncated a political career: four years in the U.S. Senate, during which he has yet to lead on any major domestic or foreign policy issue, preceded by largely anonymous service in the Illinois state Senate.

Broder neglects to mention the eight years Obama served in state government, which brings Obama's total years in elected office to twelve. Meanwhile, the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had spent a mere six years as governor of Texas -- one of the weaker governorships in the Union, and one where he accomplished nothing of note, at that -- when he ran in 2000. But I guess that was, you know, different.

(While I'm critical of today's column, I have to give Broder credit for this 2001 column in which he calls Jesse Helms what he was: "[T]he last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country.")

I'm all for openness in government...

...but this seems a bit excessive:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Ezra Klein on Tim Russert

...it's going to be strange indeed to turn on the TV on Sundays and not hear his voice. Presumably, he's up somewhere beyond the cloudline, hectoring God about His inconsistencies. "But Lord, in Exodus 6:12, you clearly said..."

What Obama means

A lot:

I suppose I live a sheltered life, but for some reason it hadn't crossed my mind that many African-Americans would think not just that it was very hard for a black man to win the nomination, but that it was impossible. But once it did, I found it horrible and heartbreaking, all the more so because, on reflection, I thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing to think. (At least in its milder form -- 'he can't win' -- as opposed to the more ominous 'they won't let him win.')

I thought: it is awful that people should think that no one who looks like them could possibly be nominated by a major party; that any candidate who looks like them has to be "some kind of stunt"; that if they tell their children that maybe they'll grow up to be President some day, they believe, in their heart of hearts, that they are lying. That should never, ever be true. Not in our country.

When Barack Obama won Iowa, the ground beneath that fear began to crack. Now it has been blown apart, in the only way it could have been. And whatever any of us think about this race, or Senator Obama, that is cause for celebration; as is the fact that it turned out not to be true.

I add one thing to this: The president is the first political figure children tend to recognize, and that they do so at a pretty young age. I very much like the idea of Barack Obama being the first president that my daughter is really aware of.

Since I can't be in St. Paul tonight...

...I'll post this, instead: