Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Oh!  More Things I Know:

When a Republican candidate makes a verbal gaffe, it's a "misstatement" and nothing to get upset about. When a Democratic candidate makes a verbal gaffe, it's a "serious blunder that has jeopardized the campaign by alienating independents."

We wouldn’t be having this argument about tire pressure if all our wheels were made out of wood.

John McCain is one teleprompter glitch away from losing the election.

Just for fun I'm going to exercise my second amendment right by strapping on a revolver, boarding a packed metro bus, and asking the first passenger I see, "Excuse me...are you sure your seat's taken?"

John Edwards gets hammered for owning one expensive house and getting a $400 haircut. John McCain gets a free pass for owning eight-to-ten expensive houses and wearing $520 loafers.

When people say, "Well, I hope you managed to get through X without too much trouble...", they're saying they hope you did, in fact, have a little trouble getting through it.

Cindy McCain would not have won the Miss Buffalo Chip pageant. But she might've come in second if her alleged tassel-twirling abilities came through for her.

The vast majority of children entering sixth grade in the fall will have no recollection of the attacks of 9/11 because they were too young to remember them.

If dreams are a preview of the afterlife, I'm going to be spending a lot of time falling off cliffs, missing tests and forgetting my lines onstage.

No matter how many speeches future presidents give, they will never quote George W. Bush to reinforce a point unless it's about dishonesty or failure.

I will not comment about whether I'll accept the nomination for vice president because I don't deal in hypotheticals.

Now that gas prices are under four bucks a gallon again, consumers will rush to trade in their hybrids for SUVs. Next week, when gas rises above four bucks a gallon again, they'll trade in their SUVs for hybrids, after which several auto industry executives will shoot themselves in the head.

If Barack Obama had shown Charlton Heston in a campaign ad, he would've been accused by Republicans of playing the Alzheimer's card.

Someone needs to invent a TV where cable news pundits feel it when you throw your shoe at the screen.

And from one year ago:

The current Republican theme song is "Holding Out For A Hero." When Fred Thompson enters the race it will change to "We Are The Champions," followed quickly by a return to "Holding Out For A Hero."

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Note: Thank you for all the birthday wishes yesterday.  But whoever sent me Raphael Nadal in a box from Spain, next time please remember air holes.  Oh, and a diaper.  ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Democratic National convention: 19
Days `til the Machias Wild Blueberry Festival: 9
Number of gorillas recently discovered in a Congo swamp area: 125,000
(Source: CNN)
Hours of streamed internet broadcasts NBC is planning for the Olympics in Peking: 2,200
(Source: Portland Press Herald)
Number of the last 7 recessions during which movie box office ticket sales spiked: 5
(Source: David Sirota)
Percent of respondents who would rather carpool with John McCain: 31%
Percent who would rather carpool with Barack Obama: 51%
(Lifetime Network survey)

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Mid-week Rapture Index: 163 (including 1 California earthquake and one Christian who isn't taking any chances).  Soul Protection Factor 16 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking among the heathen today.  

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Puppy Pic of the Day: At this age I guess the only thing you can dream about is teat time.  Same goes for grown men, I hear.

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CHEERS to getting pumped.  Just to set the record straight, lest Americans believe Republicans when they say tune-ups and proper tire pressure don’t matter when it comes to gas consumption:

The Bush administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 barrels per day by 2030.  We use about 20 million barrels per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now.  Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage by 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%.  Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone else did, we could reduce demand several percentage points immediately.  In other words: Obama is right.

The broader point, of course, is that the knuckledragger wing of the Republican party---those heaving everything at Obama in a desperate bid to cling to power---are not only wrong, they are gleefully wrong, as if all this energy talk is a game and if things get too bad we can just hit the 'Reset' button.  On the bright side, if we do start tapping the oceans again, their heads will make excellent drill bits.

P.S. Did you know that England's election season is only a month long by law?  Smug bastards.

JEERS to the last straw.  This is getting ridiculous!  Now we discover, via Pulitzer-winning journalist Ron Suskind's new book The Way of the World that, in addition to lying about aluminum tubes and the origin of the anthrax attacks and smoking guns and mushroom clouds, President Bush ordered the CIA to write a fake memo linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11 attacker Mohammed Atta. It was one of the lynchpins to his successful bid to panic America into approving war with Iraq.  Which now means that absolutely everything the administration told us about the run-up to war was a bald-faced fucking lie.  In response, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took decisive action---by buying up every single copy of Suskind's book and burning it, then kidnapping him and throwing him in the prison underneath the House chamber.  Because impeachment might muss up their hair.

JEERS to #33.  Oh Harry, say it ain't so:

South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War.

A half-century later, the Seoul government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens' petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugees in 1950-51.

I hate to say it, but maybe Truman deserved his late-term, Bush-like approval ratings.  After all, I believe he was pretty clear about where the buck stopped.  Tsk Tsk.

CHEERS to playing the slut card.  Mr. McCain to Mrs. McCain at a motorcycle rally in South Dakota Monday: "Honey, show 'em your tits!"  That sound you hear is the religious right raising the white flag.

JEERS to botching the big rescue.  About that $76 billion stimulus package that George W. Bush said would cure the sick, clothe the naked, feed the hungry and monetize the Republic: Didn’t work.  Plan B---shipping the elderly off to Alaskan ice floes---won’t work because they've all melted (the ice floes, not the elderly).  So that leaves us with Plan C: Get naked and rob banks.  Remember: unmarked bills only and hire a lookout you can trust.

WHATEVER to the last gasp of Caligula's crowd.  Two hundred and two years ago today, on August 6, 1806, the Holy Roman Empire went belly-up.  It was a pretty quiet affair except for one thing: the Going Out of Business toga sale was in-SANE!

JEERS to a tragic end.  Y'know, in all the history classes I took in school, World War II always seemed to end when the Germans surrendered.  It was like we studied all the details up until May of 1945, and then we were given a quick, "Oh, and then we dropped the atom bombs on Japan and our troops came home to ticker tape parades."  Well, the bomb that fell on Hiroshima 63 years ago today killed 140,000 people.  Shame on us for glossing over for so long the horrific deaths of so many innocent civilians.  But infinitely more shame on the Japanese war criminals for not knowing when they were licked.  Moral: adults suck.

JEERS to a poke in the mouth with a sharp stick.  If I sound a little grumpy today it's because I have to go to the dentist to have my gums folded, spindled and mutilated.  But at least they have a TV on the ceiling so I can distract myself by counting how many times Fox News mislabels corrupt Republicans with a "D" and "accidentally" calls our next president "Osama."  If they hit a baker's dozen I get free mouthwash!

CHEERS to great moments in human dampness.  On August 6, 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first American woman to swim the English Channel.  It took her 14½ hours.  Because she kept stopping to check her makeup.  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!  This misogynist message brought to you by the Republican National Committee, which just snorted milk out its nose.

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One Year Ago in C&J: August 6, 2007...

CHEERS to Ned Lamont.  This will be C&J's final comment on the Connecticut primary.  Actually, it's a quote from the movie Hoosiers that sums up why I believe it's time for millionaire lawyer Joe Lieberman to go:

"There's two kinds of dumb: The man who gets naked and runs down the street barking at the moon, and the man who does that in my living room.  One you can kinda accept.  The other you're sorta forced to deal with."

Seriously.  He was standing naked in my living room last night.  Singing Oklahoma.  The dog's gonna be in therapy for months.

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And just one more...

CHEERS to letters we wish we'd written.  In today's must-read, Christine Carter of Falmouth takes Republicans to the cleaners in the Portland Press Herald:

In the past few days, I have heard Barack Obama accused of being "arrogant."  It gave me an uncomfortable feeling, and I finally figured out why.  I grew up as a white person in Richmond, Va., in the 1960s.

My grandmother, rest her soul, was very fond of many black people---her long-time cook, the elevator operators and the ladies who would carry her tray at the Hot Shoppes cafeterias for a nickel tip.

But as soon as she had to deal with black people who saw themselves as equal to her---nurses who cared for her in the hospital or the black politicians who began to take part in the Richmond government---they were given the label of "uppity."

Is this what people really mean about Obama when they say he is "arrogant"?  Why is the mainstream media so willing to assign the arrogance label to Obama, who seems calm and consistent as he pursues his campaign?

John McCain has a standard speech in which he sums up what he will have accomplished by the end of his first term.  Bin Laden captured, the war won, the budget balanced, taxes cut.

Isn't this "presumptuous"?  He is absolutely sure that he is right about everything, as he confuses Sunnis and Shiites, Czechoslovakia with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and "the border between Iraq and Afghanistan," which turns out [to be the] country of Iran.
I'd rather have calm and confident than convinced but confused.

Get that woman in a campaign ad!

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And this just in: you can now add boy toy to George Bush's resume.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:

"John McCain is looking for someone for vice president who has more economic expertise than he does.  So congratulations Bill in Portland Maine, you're on the short list."
---John Kerry
8/4/08

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