Morning Briefing

Ah ha ha ha ha. Metallica’s Death Magnetic (my review here) has gone platinum. It was the band’s fifth consecutive album to debut at No. 1 on Billboard, breaking a record held by the Beatles, U2, and Dave Matthews Band–which is pretty much the short list of bands I fucking can’t stand.

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In other news of bands I can stand–and in fact love–Wilco is working on its new album.

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BREAKING: The Onion predicted this Joe the Plumber bullshit way back when Nirvana wasn’t classic rock.

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Winning the youth vote: McCain campaign kicking out college-y types from its rallies.

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Everyone who was 13 years old in, like 1993, will want to read this interview with the creator of NBA Jam.

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Turns out those absinence pledges work … if nobody takes ‘em.

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Please refrain from dressing like Sarah Palin tonight because it’s dumb. Thanks.

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Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir has your list of the 10 scariest movies ever, and then his list of the 10 scariest movies you’ll probably never watch but should know enough about to discuss them with people whom you’ll want to convince that you did, in fact, watch them instead of Dancing with the Stars.

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MTV now has ever music video ever on its new website except videos made by Black folks pre-1991ish because MTV was unaware that videos such as these exsisted sorry about that.

New Obama ad features Sarah Palin

I think Wonkette says it best here:

Basically, every time Sarah Palin opens her mouth — or briefly closes one eye — it’s comedy gold.

Morning Briefing

This pumpkin had a McCain bumper sticker on its SUV

Whenever shit hits the fan, everyone turns to Yeats. You know, there are other doomsday poems out there, people.

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None of which were written by William Carlos Williams, though. But he was a bad roommate.

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The Alaska Daily News is in the tank for Obama, obviously. Because they have first-hand Palin experience.

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You know who’s not in the tank for Obama? Amazon, which lists Obama Halloween masks under “Terrorist.”

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And how did the phrase “in the tank” get started anyway? Is it a swimming metaphor? A boxing metaphor? Both?

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Nothing like a second Great Depression to take care of the wealth gap.

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That One is up 8 points in Virginia, where he is out doing both Tim Kaine and Jim Webb in NoVa.

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If I ever have genius, I hope it is seething.

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Sarah Palin imagines a nightmare world if Obama wins. She must have stopped reading every newspaper in the world for the last eight years, because Bush has already taken care of all this.

Put a quarter in your ass ’cause you played yourself — The Randy Scheunemann edition

I’ve been hesitant to say that Obama has this thing wrapped up, and I still won’t. But after Nov. 5, if Obama is your president-elect, I think this is a moment when I knew McCain’s dance was over.

Earlier Marc Ambinder wrote about whisperings in McCain’s campaign, talk of Palin going her own way with the Republican base at McCain’s expense. Very Mavericky. Some examples:

“palling around with terrorists” was a line that escaped HQ’s vetting… Palin’s criticism of the campaign for pulling out of Michigan was greeted by anger internally… Palin’s expressed opinion that Rev. Wright is a legitimate issue — which subtly knocks McCain for not raising it — was perceived as an attempt to preemptively blame McCain’s wobbliness for his loss, which would theoretically enhance Palin’s standing with the base.

Then Ambinder got this e-mail from Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s cheif foriegn policy advisor:

Just read your post.  This is on the record.  This is cleared by HQ.  It is a fact that Barack Obama was palling around with terrorists.  It was a fact before Governor Palin  said it in a fully vetted speech and it is fact today.   It is bullshit to claim or write anything else.

Things are falling apart. Factors are pointing fingers, trying to lay the blame for this failed campaign at someone else’s feet. The official response from “HQ” is essentially to stick fingers in ears.

This is what the McCain camp has to run on: played-up “facts” and half-assed innuendo that no one but their base believes.

Rallying the base: Former McCain advisor votes for Obama

From The New Republic:

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision “is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis.”

Palin was brought on the rally the Republican base, and to an extent, she has. But she has also exposed fissures in the base that are now turning into gaping cracks.

What we’re seeing is a split between emotion and intellect in the base. When Conservatism was lost wandering in the political desert, it thought of itself as a movement based on ideas and philosophy.

When the Republicans came to power, they hung on to that power by appealing to emotion via the Southern Strategy and scare tactics. In the Bush II years, the party abandoned the ideas that served as its intellectual core–personal freedom, small government, quasi-isolationism–and campaigned purely on emotion.

Palin is the heir to this movement. She is void of any sound policy ideas, but she is very skilled at playing politics with the emotions of a populous. Palin is the political version of a TV ad that is slick, stylish, and savvy but leaves you wondering what product it is pitching.

And that’s why you’re seeing the intellectual base of the conservative movement abandoning ship. McCain’s choice of Palin sent them a clear signal: They are no longer wanted.

Morning Briefing

A lady gets on stage in front of hundreds of mortgage bankers and tries to citizen arrest Karl Rove or something (these things never go as planned). Rove avoids all eye contact and gives her an elbow John Salley would be proud of. Here’s the video!

Indy Star columnist Bob Kravitz (aka “Krapvitz” to the wittier commenters) has an imaginary conversation with the comb-over guy from Monday Night Football about why the Colts are so fucking horrible. The Post wonders the same thing.

My friends, John McCain did not spend five and a half years in Vietnam to lose Pennsylvania. John McCain is going to win Pennsylvania, or at least the real, non-communist parts. And here’s how.

Okay, fine. I’ll probably have to read the new Emily Post biography. Yes, that Emily Post. Now just shut up.

Matthew Yglesias makes a noble effort to make any goddamn sense of the last David Brooks column. I thought we had given up doing that.

Bumpy Knuckles is back with a banger.

Sarah Palins spends all her time talking about how she and the rest of the regular, real, working-class, white, Main Streeters haaaaaaate those rich elites who don’t understand what it’s like to be real. And then her John McCain’s campaign gets all pissy when a reporter points out that it spent more than $150K on Main Streeter Supreme Sara Palin’s clothes at stores that ARE NOT ON MAIN STREET!

And now a word from Andrew Sullivan, a conservative living in the fake part of American who is clearly not real: “If you want a commander-in-chief who will make vital decisions at the last minute, on impulse, according purely to polls and electoral tactics, against his own judgment and deferring to Rovian hacks: vote for McCain. He’s George W. Bush, without the prudence and caution.”

Morning Briefing

Former General and Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell endorses Obama. The video above is a must-watch.

Of course, he only endorsed him because he’s black and racist, something that these Free Republic comments clearly know a little something about. Best comment? “As a white blues guitarist here in NY City I too have seen reversed racism.”

Then there’s this guy and his misspelled Obama lynching ghost.

Did anybody ever listen to Jim Cramer?

Farhad Manjoo has 18 things for you computer that we jackasses probably aren’t using. Except iTunes, which we probably are. So make it 17.

When the newspaper in College Station, Texas, — a.k.a. Berlin on the Brazos” — endorses Obama, you begin to wonder if this Palin thing might have just been a mistake.

And then the Idaho Statesman endorses Obama. Just goes to show you what we all know–conservative newspapers are in the tank for Obama.

There is wisdom. And then there is Iggy Pop’s wisdom: “I do a little vacuuming, a little bleeding.”

Advice from a dumbass

It’s been a while, but former VP Dan Quayle has apparently popped up again to say something ridiculous. The Indianapolis Star story has a story headlined “Quayle Warns Against Counting Out McCain.”

That’s not the dumb bit. Actually, it’s pretty good advice. But the story’s subhead is:

“Former vice president says he’s advised Sarah Palin to be herself”

Yeah. That’s what she needs to do. Be herself.

This advice comes from the laughingstock of VPs. I suspect that’s the reason he’s making headlines. Reporters quickly got a handle on Sarah Palin and thought, “Now, who would be the go-to person for idiocy in the VP office.”

And Quayle’s phone immediately started ringing.

The only upside I can see to a McCain victory is that my alma mater would no longer be The Place That Gave the Dumbest VP Ever A College Diploma. That would be good.

Morning Briefing

Good morning! You now own banks. Don’t be afraid to demand that the teller grab you a cup of coffee. Socialism is going kick ass.

Bookninja has a contest that just got won (see above).

What’s the difference between Obama and Osama? Like totally nothing, says Virginia GOP head. 

Read this new poem. It reminds me of this old poem. Which I love. And which I wrote about here. 

Thanks Sarah Palin for being such a frightening jackass that Hillary voters are now afraid of John McCain and love that guy who they say was kinda mean to Hillary who they loved all along.

The New York Times is totally in the tank for Obama which means it has to start asking questions about that lunatic that somehow got an hour on Fox News to say that Obama is for real a Muslim socialist slash Godless liberal who will probably make your wife dress all burka-like before he steals her and then socializes, like, nine banks the rest of the economy.

Fuck Hank Williams, Jr. I’m never going to start listening to your shitty elitist music now. And no, I’m not ready for some football.

McCain-Palin campaign drawing thousands of evolutionary-challenged voters.

BREAKING: Troopergate pictures

Okay, so nothing’s really happening and it looks like those poor bastards (legislators) and poorer bastards (journalists camped out on the other side of the super-secret meeting) are going to be there for hours.

But there are pictures of the campaign kangaroos!

Or just one picture. The Anchorage Daily’s Alaska Politics Blog has the story, thought it’s last update is around 12pm. Who know what time that is in the real world. Like 4pm or 5pm or something.

But check out the comments. Palin doesn’t seem to be getting much love in her home state’s paper.

Palin the feminist: “There’s a place in hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.”

She tries to quote Madeleine Albright, via a Starbucks coffee cup, but ends up mucking that up as well.

As it turns out, Palin misquoted both Albright and her mocha cup, which reads: “There’s a place in hell reserved for women who don’t help other women.”

But I think the sentiment came through loud and clear. Yikes. 

Here is Palin’s record on “helping women.”