Yesterday, I drove to New Jersey, quietly stood on line which ushered me into the Community College Auditorium in Pemberton, picked a good spot on the third level of benches, pretended to clap and applaud when John McCain said stupid things which I didn't agree with, all with the hopes of being called on by one of the McCain staffers holding a microphone.  I was oh so close.  I was next on the other side of the auditorium when McCain abruptly ended the supposedly open town hall where he allegedly takes tough questions after 1 questioner, who only got called on because his nine year old kid was next to him, asked McCain about Bin Laden.

On the day John McCain challenged Barack Obama to join him in a series of old-style town hall meetings, he said:

I believe they should be people who are selected randomly, who come and enjoy the oldest form of democracy in America, and let them tell us what’s on their minds and let each of us make a response.

What a maverick.  What a straight talker.  What a load of garbage.  

Yesterday, after the McCain campaign spent the day hyping an event as a town hall meeting where McCain would "answer questions from real voters," and tsk, tsking Obama for not being there to "revolutionize our political process and start a real change in the tone in politics," there was clarification, as reported by Fox News’ Shepard Smith, at the end of the broadcast:

I reported at the top of this hour that the campaign had told us at Fox News that the audience would be made up of Republicans, Democrats, and independents. We have now received a clarification from the campaign and I feel I should pass it along to you. The McCain campaign distributed tickets to supporters, Mayor Bloomberg, who of course is a registered Republican, and other independent groups.

And other attendees:

Sens. Joseph Lieberman...and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Others were culled from McCain e-mail lists and from independent voter groups.

Well, you can't get much more random or real than that, can you?

And by the way, today the Associated Press is reporting that:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday rejected Republican rival John McCain's proposal for 10 joint town-hall appearances, offering instead to have just one on the July 4 holiday.  [...]

McCain told reporters traveling with him in New Jersey that was "a very disappointing response."

...but not a word about last night's stacked deck.  

So instead of a candidate diary I bring you a diary on someone we can all agree to reject AND denounce.

President Douchebag, travelling in Estonia and Latvia -- continues to defy all logic and live in his own private Bubble.

President Bush said Tuesday that the sectarian violence rocking Iraq is part of an al-Qaida plot to goad Iraqi factions into repeated attacks and counterattacks.

No question it's tough, no question about it," Bush said at a news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. "There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion because of the attacks by al-Qaida causing people to seek reprisal."

Then comes the kicker:

"We've been in this phase for a while," Bush said.

For a while????  WTF -- hey your Evil Veep said a month ago that things were going "remarkably well" to another one of your enablers -- Rush Limbaugh.

full link here
http://news.yahoo.com/...

This begins with mention of Jack Murtha's outrage with Bush:

Murtha is very frank in the article, as he always is.