From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
John McCain's Achilles heel: John McCain
New Rule: Old soldiers never die, they get young soldiers killed.
[Last] week John McCain said for the third time in two days that Iran, a Shiite stronghold, was training al Qaeda, a militant Sunni organization. That the Hatfields of the Muslim world would be working with the McCoys is so not true even Dick Cheney hasn’t said it. Now the press, which loves McCain because he feeds them barbeque, dismissed this as just one of those senior moments. Not to worry, he’s only going to have his finger on the nuclear trigger.
But it’s not just a gaffe, it’s what McCain really thinks. And therein lies the paradox of this campaign: McCain’s strength is really his weakness. He’s a warrior who’s dumb about war. ... [C]hapter three of The Art of War says, "Know thy enemy." And John McCain plainly doesn’t. He thinks the solution is our presence in the Middle East. No, the problem is our presence in the Middle East. That’s why I don’t care if John McCain is better than Bush on global warming or torture or campaign finance, because he’s exactly the same as Bush on the war. They both don’t get the same thing.
As long as we’re setting up shop in the heart of the Arab world, we’re not keeping America safer. Bin Laden goes ballistic over cartoons in Danish newspapers, and Goober and Grandpa want to put up a Hooters in Fallujah.
They don’t "hate us for our freedom," they hate us for our fiefdom.
---Bill Maher
Watch the whole thing here. And remember the silver lining as the Clinton/Obama tussle drags on: it'll take about 30 seconds to position this guy as the doddering, hot-headed, Bush-embracing warmonger he is. (So sue me...I'm a doe-eyed optimist.)
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Note: Here's something else not many people know about John McCain: his shoes squeak when he walks. All the other senators call him "Ol' Maverick McSqueakyshoes" behind his back. How cruel.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Bush and Cheney leave office: 300! (Woo Hoo!)
Days 'til the Pennsylvania primary: 28
Days left to register for the Pennsylvania primary: 0
Number of new disease appearances during the 1940s: 25
Number of new disease appearances during the 1990s: 98
(Source: Nature)
Percent of drivers who either send or receive text messages while driving: 20%
Percent of 18-24 year olds who do: 66%
(Source: U.S. News via The Week)
Number of accidents per year by Barney Spifflewitz, who sends and receives text messages while operating a forklift: 419
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Bob Geiger Surrogate Osama Clock: It's been 2,382 days since the president declared he would catch the al Qaeda leader "dead or alive." So, Mr. Bush..."Where's Osama?"
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "Dammit...why does the phone always ring at the worst possible time??"
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CHEERS to ActBluementum. Holy mother of god in a grilled cheese sandwich...look at the news we just got:
ActBlue has raised more than $21 million for Democrats this cycle. That's a tenfold increase over our 2006 totals.
This is great news for downballot campaigns across the country. More than seventy-five percent of those funds went to non-presidential candidates, illustrating the growing power of citizen fundraisers and the full-fledged embrace across the Democratic party of the kinds of technologies we know can change politics.
What's more, we think it's evidence of a positive trend for Democrats. Alongside the spike in downballot fundraising, record turnouts from Hawaii to Rhode Island, new innovations in online organizing at every level, and a new willingness on the part of Democrats to support not only Democratic challengers to Republican incumbents but turnover within the Democratic party are signs of renaissance in the Democratic party.
I know I probably sound like a broken record, but the best time to fill a candidate's coffers is early. So if you can toss a few of them new gold presidential dollars in the hopper, the Blue Majority candidates may name a landmark after you. I'm shootin' for the BiPM Weigh Station on the Maine Turnpike. Man's gotta have a dream.
JEERS to Mainers in the maelstrom. You know the economy is bad here when the Portland Press Herald runs a six-part series called Falling behind. Among their findings:
Inflation in basic commodities of life---especially food and fuel---is squeezing many family budgets dry. ... Mainers are falling behind on paying their car loan, utility and credit card bills. ... Foreclosure and mortgage delinquency rates have hit record levels in Maine. ... Small businesses are finding that Mainers don’t think this is the time to be opening their wallets, and that has implications for the broader economy.
Later this week the paper---which recently eliminated 27 positions and is being sold by its parent company in Seattle because advertisers aren’t opening their wallets---will tell us about the individuals and groups who are "finding a silver lining in the slowdown." Wild guess here: pawn shops and loan sharks.
JEERS to flunking the evildoer test. Uh, folks, we got a problem. Seems our best undercover operatives are having trouble infiltrating al Qaeda. We're intelligent Kossacks here, so let's see if we can figure out what's giving our spies away: Turban? Check. Stubble? Check. Koran? Check. Robes? Check. AK47? Check. Penny loafers from Famous Footwear? Okay...I'd say we've found the culprit.
CHEERS to walkin' the walk. On March 25, 1965---a few weeks after white-racist-fueled "Bloody Sunday"---Martin Luther King, Jr. led thousands of marchers to the State Capital in Montgomery for a rally. (Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a few months later.) Also on this date, fellow marcher Harry Belafonte sang a 90-minute version of Day-O while Dr. King drove back to Selma to grab his #!#&%@! speech off the dresser.
JEERS to Big-D adulterers. Oops. Detroit's mayor was charged yesterday with 927 counts of perjury and Improper Use of a Penis, making him the third Democrat in recent days (after Eliot Spitzer and Dave Paterson) to get caught ignoring stuff that's in the Bible. I hope I don't end up sharing a loft with 'em in Hell. Straight sex is kinda creepy.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man.
Joe at Americablog asks: Is it too much to ask Democratic leaders to support Democratic candidates?
Apparently.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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CHEERS to tradition. The annual Easter Egg Roll took place yesterday on the White House lawn. The children were screened for hidden weapons, forced to sign a loyalty oath, and pre-recruited for the National Guard by General Petraeus in a bunny costume. And this year there was an extra-valuable prize for the parents of the kid who could find the Golden Egg: a free tank of gas. (No one found it, of course. It was stashed under Dick Cheney's barcalounger at his undisclosed location.)
P.S. My caption is, "Hey, you seen any Iraqi WMDs where you live?"
CHEERS to home vegetation. Out today on DVD: The Kite Runner, The Mist, and the critically-acclaimed documentary Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains. Also something called Shrooms. It answers the question: What does it take to make it through an entire hour of Wolf Blitzer?
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One Year Ago in C&J: March 25, 2007...
JEERS to bad timing. Moments after Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki said that his government was making "...huge strides on the road toward stability," visiting U.N. Secretary General Ben Ki-moon almost got a rocket up his tuckus. When asked for his reaction to the attack, Ben-ki responded, "Thanks, Oops I Crapped My Pants™!"
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And just one more...
CHEERS to the C&J mailbag:
Dear Abby,
Last night we went out to dinner, and when we got back there was a note on our door written by the downstairs tenant's six year-old son. It read:
Sorry
Busted your lamp :(
i hope it wasent to presios
i hope you aceped my apology
Bo sorry
Here's my dilemma. The lamp he broke in the basement was a piece of junk belonging to the previous tenant. Should I ease his conscience by letting him know this? Or should I make him stick to the binding "apology contract" he signed last night, which entitles me to free housecleaning and finger-pulling for the next ten years?
Signed, Confused in Portland Maine
(Update: I tore up the letter. The kid's a miracle grout cleaner.)
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Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
The Chicago Sun-Times ran a messiest Daily Kos feature contest, and the winner was a doozy: Cheers and Jeers featured a foot-deep layer of laundry that hid, among other items, a can of peanuts, an empty Gatorade bottle, size-11 sneakers, old homework, a deflated SpongeBob SquarePants birthday balloon, several dirty bath towels, a Ouija board, and prom photos.
---Good Housekeeping
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