There are plenty of arguments one could make both for and against government offering a bailout to newspapers.

And the arguments, at least in America, would probably fall on deaf ears, as the White House seems to have already made up its mind:

With the Boston Globe just the latest big-city newspaper teetering on the edge of shutdown, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs brushed aside a question about whether the federal government will consider stepping in to help save newspapers, as it has with so many other industries.

“I don’t know what, in all honesty, government can do about it,” Gibbs told reporters.

Well … what, in all honesty, government could do about it is the same damn thing government has done for every other failing industry — throw buckets of cash at the problem.

I acknowledge that, as CNN goes on to paraphrase Gibbs, there would certainly be hurdles and questions involved in bailing out an industry that (at least theoretically) lists “examination and criticism of government” as one of its top priorities.

However, I would imagine there are ways around that problem. In the grand scheme of things, withholding bailout money from a traditional industry because part of their job involves interacting with government and reporting about it to the people smacks of either pettiness … or resignation. Or, of course, pragmatic politics.

While President Obama’s superhero shine may have dimmed somewhat in the eyes of leftists as he has moved towards the centre since his inauguration, most of us would still have a tough time believing that he’d be unable to find some cash to keep newspapers afloat while still managing to allow them to report independently about his administration.

If it was a priority to keep newspapers afloat, believe me, they’d find a way.

But in brushing off the question, Gibbs goes for the quick shot, implying that there are issues of coverage and objectivity in play:

“You guys didn’t think $100 million meant a lot a few weeks ago,” Gibbs said. “But looking at some of the balance sheets, $100 million seems to mean a lot.” Ouch.

That’s nothing more than a glib way — and kind of funny — way to duck a real explanation. And I would speculate that the reason for the dodge is because, if the White House has considered a bailout for newspapers at all in the middle of all of this, it’s been flatly rejected because there’s no point in throwing good money after bad.

So long as network television news, CNN and their cable news buddies, mainstream magazines like Time and Newsweek and newsradio from all sides of the political spectrum are going strong … why would the White House step into save newspapers, really?

There are the altruistic motives, sure, about the fourth estate and all that … but really? Aside from journalists themselves and their ever-shrinking cadre of True Believers, who cares about that?

In the minds of many more people, tossing $100 million at the quickly fossilizing newspaper industry would be tantamount to propping up the failed status quo in order to keep the market from evolving into its next iteration — and that would be a fairly un-capitalist stance for a White House already hearing the ceaseless yap of retarded talk radio DJs with a special case of “Socialist!” Tourette’s.

Add to that the Republican-manufactured image of an election given to Obama by the mainstream media — we all remember how “in the tank” became part of the political lexicon for those six months, right? — and you’re just poking the Right with a stick a few short weeks after the saner elements of the party finally began to climb on board.

A government bailout for American newspapers can’t happen right now. Not only is it probably a waste of money, but the political optics are terrible and the industry as we know it is well past the point where a $100-million injection could really “save” anything.

It is not hard to rip on the future of newspapers. If it is easy to kick someone while they’re down, it is even easier to punch them in the face while they lie on their deathbed. When it comes to fishwrap, I’ve done both. Sometimes gleefully. Sometimes while bemoaning the future of a world where free dailies and blogs halfheartedly attempt to duplicate the real work that newspapers do.

I also pick on the Toronto Star a lot. Once again, it’s easy. I worked there, I know the culture and I can still predict, with startling accuracy, the angle and lead they will use on any given story. That doesn’t make them a bad newspaper, just an easy target.

Regardless, I wanted to share this fantastic investigative piece by Kevin Donovan. It’s a all-too-rare reminder of what real investigative reporting can uncover. This wouldn’t happen in your favourite free daily — nowhere near enough staff, or space, to get it done. It wouldn’t happen online. Bloggers don’t have the credentials, the time to devote to the project or — for the most part — the years of experience required to navigate something like this.

It’s a good ol’ fashioned newspaper expose-a-crook yarn, and you should read it with your feet up, a big cup of coffee in your hand and then reflect on the fact that there are still a few good reasons we kill millions of trees every week.

Sex and chairty: James Arion profits from both

Job well done.

Soon we will return to juvenile rants about why the Detroit Red Wings are God’s gift to hockey. And whooo boy, they sure look the part these days.

It is, after all, springtime, and this is what we do every Spring.

But first, I read something today that helped clarify an idea I’d been wrestling with — and since it’s about preserving the very fabric of the industry that employs me … I figured the hockey could wait.

Before we begin, a shout out to an excellent blog penned a by a friend who puts forward an idea that is fascinating, if unwieldy, and — apologies for the bluntness, but it’s how we do things here — would kill the damn beast faster than just lining copy editors up against the wall and shooting them in the head.

(But it’s totally a gloriously creative new idea, and well worth a look, so go take one so we’re all on the same page here.)

“What it really means is that newspapers are spending far, far too much money on far, far too many people producing far, far too many stories on far, far too many pages.”

As a senior editor at a free daily newspaper that publishes in five markets with a staff of, roughly, 17 … I could have told you that without all the math.

And I’d argue with both Gerson and LaPoint to say that it’s not unused content in the form of totally unread stories on pages that people just  don’t read — it’s the final 400+ words of EVERY story that go consistently unread because less than 5% of the population really wants to read all 800 damn words some daily reporter lugged back from a city hall debate about garbage. I’d argue that readers have no problem reading 24 pages, or 24 stories, if those stories don’t take them five minutes or more apiece to read.

Frankly, if it wasn’t part of my job to see who put what in which story … I’d only read the first seven grafs of 80% of a newspaper’s content. And I love to read, but I know I’m not alone.

An 80 page newspaper costs a lot of money to print, especially now that it won’t be close to paid-for by advertising revenue … but if you chop the last half off of almost every story (we’ll say, for the sake of maintaining some sort of journalistic integrity here, that we’ll leave a few Important stories, as well as most of the columnists, alone) you can go from an 80-page paper to a 45-50 page paper and, I promise you, nobody except the writers and other journalists would care.

But the central idea in the Gerson’s post is one I want to talk about. There’s more to it than I’m quoting (because it’s easier to make my point that way, of course), so go read it already, but here’s the gist. She thinks that focusing on giving people exactly what they want is one way for newspapers to maintain some profitability:

“Why not divide the product up, sell it separately and publish according to readership? So, you maybe have a 10-page, quality news section in tabloid format that comes out daily for free. Your sports is the next big money maker, but your readership and game schedules means it makes sense to publish it only on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, for example. Charge 25 cents for each of those. Sell the arts sections once or twice a week for $1 a pop. Then offer a high quality weekly newsmagazine on weekends that sums up the week’s news and contextualizes in long-form, combined with features. You could charge $1.50 to $5.00 on that alone. Then take your fashion and lifestyle sections, put them into a monthly glossy magazine format and sell them on magazine newsstands at standard magazine rates.”

See what I mean? Now that is some ambitious shit. It takes an idea I’ve had for a while — that newspapers should not be afraid to change their style to focus on what they do best — and takes it to the sort of extreme that would send the industry over a cliff instead of slowly walking down the other side of the hill and off into the sunset. I love the spirit of the idea, but it would never work.

Newspapers  don’t do niches, which is essentially what this is. They can’t. Here’s why in three reasons.

1. The Internet exists. The biggest niche marketer in the history of humanity has cornered the market on that kind of stuff. In the quest to save newspapers from the Online Demons, a lot of people seem to come up with ideas that involve newspapers turning into some sort of World-Wide-Web-on-Paper. It can’t happen like that. The reason newspapers are still read at all in this age when info is everywhere and I can find the answer to any question you might want to ask me in 3.5 seconds is because some people want a simple island that has a little bit of everything they need for (intellectual) life without them having to risk the spooky forest to forage for it. That — and by this point, it’s pretty much ONLY that — is the advantage a daily newspaper has over the ‘net. It’s simple. It’s all here. It’s in one place, and you don’t have to hunt for a news site once you’re done with the sports site and then navigate yourself over to a site that has entertainment listings and then on to weather.ca. Just turn the page. But if I want just sports, or just arts listings or just politics … then I already know where to find as much of a specific subject as I want. I’ve got ‘em bookmarked.

2. Reporters aren’t experts, and neither are columnists. They’re good writers, adept at turning things around quickly, cleanly and spinning a tale about something they knew nothing about eight hours ago. Those are real skills, but with the exception of the shrinking club of beat reporters who haven’t been long ago stripped of their daily beats for budgetary reasons, they’re Just. Not. Experts. They can’t do as thorough a job covering those niches as the people I already go to for my “focused” coverage.

I’m not going to drop a buck to read a thrice-weekly from a bunch of writers from the Toronto Star sports section when there are publications like The Hockey News or Baseball Digest that already go way beyond what The Star is doing and focus entirely on the niche I really want — ie, all hockey, no baseball or basketball. Similarly, I’m not going to pay magazine prices for content that belongs in a newspaper lifestyle section. Why the hell wouldn’t I just buy Vanity Fair or Chatelaine or even Maxim? Pay $1 for a newspaper Arts section once a week?! How about I just grab Now — who do pretty much nothing but Arts and Life — every week for free? Drop $5 for a newsmagazine written by newspaper reporters? Ummm … naw, thanks. I already have Time or MacLean’s for that, and they’ve been dropping weekly newsmagazines since back in the days when people were actually paying $0.50 for a big ol’ newspaper.

3. This plan doesn’t save newspapers, anyway. It breaks them down to their basic components and puts them on the auction block, hoping in desperation for some bids. It’s like a contents sale at the home of a recently deceased person who died intestate. Newspapers, for good or ill, are what they are: A collection of stories that range from news and crime to lifestyle, and arts to sports and politics, and fashion to terrible advice columnists that make me want to throw my coffee against the nearest wall. I’m not trying to romanticize newspapers here, I’m just defining them. That’s what they are. Even our crummy little free daily newspaper has the same basic newspaper elements that you get when you purchase the New York Times.

I’m not saying this idea is without merit. For one thing, nobody is trying to think of things like this, and even though cynics like me love to throw darts, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing worth using here.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve often thought that newspapers should focus on what they do best, and include the other stuff behind it. Focused marketing, if you will, instead of straight up chopping it all up and going straight for the niches. For instance — and this is the example I always use — the Toronto Sun should make itself a Sports newspaper. Do it now, while people still recognize it as Canada’s best sports section. Throw the remaining money into sports. Make the cover a sports cover unless something so huge it can’t be ignored happens. Make sports the first section in your paper, then crime, then the Sunshine Girl, then everything else. That’s what Sun readers want, anyway. But the key thing is that everything else has to be there — because that’s what newspapers are, a collection of everything that happened yesterday.

You change that, even to help them survive, and you’ve killed them. And the seedlings you grow from the fertilizer provided by the corpse will die shortly thereafter — because while people are increasingly less willing to cough up a buck for a paper, they’d be even more hesitant to cough up a buck for a bastard publication that looks like a newspaper but only has one section.

Apparently I’m not the only person having a lot of fun with the Blue Jays ridiculous start. Dude writing the headlines at TSN tonight is evidently enjoying the BJs’ offensive ejaculations, too:

Seriously, I love filthy headlines and the Blue Jays are awesome right now.

There’s something a heck of a lot of fun about rooting for a scrappy baseball team that surprises people when they’re supposed to suck. With the ruins of steroids everywhere and the culture of money that is the AL East, it’s one of the few truly feel-good endeavours left among the wasteland of professional baseball fandom

And given the incredibly depressing state of journalism right now, it’s always good to be reminded that sneaking some ribald innuendo into a headline is easier to do online, where there aren’t so many editors watching. And that it’s a pleasure that the death of a newspaper can’t take away.

So, ummm, Go Jays Go. But mostly, keep pounding them deep.

It’s been a while. And that’s on me. For a multitude of reasons. The games that are supposed to be dirty had either peaked, gotten so filthy that it wasn’t fun anymore or were … well, just too depressing for words.

It’s pretty hard to top the combination of vacuous journalism, political intrigue and stump-dumb citizenry that was the 2008 election.

I’ve forced myself to try and ignore the fallout from baseball’s steroid scandal, because the 12-year-old kid inside me that thought he was going to join Jose Canseco in the 40-40 club one day wants to curl up in a ball and cry whenever I get too deep into that stuff.

And the media … well the media is dying the kind of slow and ugly death that brings to mind an MS patient, diagnosed with terminal cancer while battling full-blown AIDS. So I kind of felt like I shouldn’t kick the industry when it’s down, crying like a bitch for any semblance of mercy.

So yeah … I took a break.

(Also, I was writing stuff that was, you know, for publication. Which is okay, I guess, but you can’t fucking swear.)

And now it’s over.

Anyway, we’ll start by discussing the unusual honesty of Charles Barkley, because I used to like him a great deal. And I still might, though I feel that I really shouldn’t.

Chuck is funny. He’s smart and insightful. He can talk about things that aren’t basketball and he doesn’t feel the need to pump up the NBA or any of its stars. Barkley found himself a huge following by telling it like it is, while managing to make fun of Kenny Smith while he was telling it.

He co-wrote an excellent book — which is more of a series of interviews than a book, but whatever — with Michael Wilbon called Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?

It’s about sports, but it’s also about race and class and education and all sorts of relevant things, and it’s well worth a read. It shows off the side of Charles that his NBA on TNT gig only hinted at — that there’s some real thought behind a lot of those wisecracks and that the world could do worse than hear him out when he says he wants to run for governor of Alabama.

And then he went and got himself arrested for driving drunk. Which is a whole different kind of stupid.

I lost a little bit of respect for him, and so did a lot of other people, but mistakes happen. Chuck apologized, profusely, plead guilty and took his lumps like a man — a drunk driving idiot of a man, but he was at least took responsibility for his actions.

He served a few days in jail — literally, a few days, and got out this week. Whatever, right?

But the problem is that Chuck can’t give a disingenuous answer. It’s a gift and a curse.

Here’s Barkley on a Philadelphia radio station yesterday:

You never think about until something bad happens. But seriously, I can’t sit here and lie or BS you, I’m never going to be like that. But I’ve probably been out drinking and driving 100 times a year when, you know, you just eat and you drink or whatever, and you just get behind the wheel of a car and you don’t even think about it. This was, to me, I’m glad…it was a very valuable lesson for me. Because people never even think about that..I mean, I’m just going out drinking with dinner, or just going out drinking with you and the boys, and just like, “Let me go home.” It’s like, don’t even think about it. But this gave me, like, “Man, you could kill somebody!”

Yeah man, you could kill somebody, or something.

I don’t know whether I respect Charles more for being honest about some incredibly stupid behaviour on his part, or whether drinking and driving 100 times a year is so monumentally stupid that I don’t ever want him to open his mouth on television again.

It’s the quintessential problem with turning retired athletes and the like into commentators and public personas.

One the one hand, if they’re fake, most of us se right through it, and mock them accordingly for spewing platitudes to garner a paycheque in their twilight years.

If they’re real, and they talk about anything other than sports at any point, they’re inevitably going to say things — whether it’sabout public behaviour, drugs, women, race, homosexuality, etc. — that reflect how sheltered a life they’ve led and how out-of-step a lot of their behaviour and values are with what is socially acceptable for the rest of us.

So yeah, Chuck is a drunk driver, and he’s a fucking idiot for it, but how many other NBA, NFL and NHL talking heads have gotten into their car after having a few on several dozen occasions and would never, ever mention it, even after serving a three-day jail stint and displaying their stupidity to the world? Probably quite a few.

I’d say ‘Here’s to Chuck for being honest, even if he is a fool,’ but raising a glass to him seems wholly inappropriate.

At the very leas, however, I think any citizens of Alabama who were Afraid of a Large Black Man Running For Governor can probably rest easy.

There’s surely going to be a final act in this damned play, so let’s get on with it already.

I understand too much about the nasty rules of life’s overarching narrative to believe that the third presidential debate is over, Barack Obama has a large enough lead to coast home and that Senator John McCain — who has sadly managed to turn himself into the villian of this piece — will not empty his bag of tricks in a last-ditch play to find at least one thing that can stem or reverse the tide.

These are important times and the muse of history demands a fitting conclusion. This story doesn’t end with a slow run up to an unsurprising vote while the world just kicks it and waits for an inevitable verdict. Can’t happen like that. Won’t happen like that. Good guys don’t triumph that easily, and if they do they don’t end up being the good guys.

So what happens now? When does the other shoe drop? What kind of shoe is it? When will the Republican masses get their long-awaited October surprise?

As it stands, here’s what you will be looking at for the next two-plus weeks: A McCain campaign hunting desperately for a silver bullet will be throwing anything and everything at the wall in the flailing hope that something, anything will stick to Obama.

If you want to get a true sense of what’s out there that might actually be considered as ammunition in the home stretch, you have to delve into the depths of the Republican strongholds.

I felt brave on a cold Tuesday morning, so I went there, and these — according to those who are desperate to bring about the downfall of Barack Obama — are the issues that need to be raised before America votes, Obama wins and the rest of the world breathes an enormous sigh of relief:

TREMENDOUS ISSUE NO. 1: Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Apparently Mr. Hussein is not an American citizen. Even though his birth certificate has been posted on factcheck.org, the Republican masses would like to see the “real” birth certificate. Which is not this one. This one is a fake. Why? Because it’s on factcheck.org, a biased website. So …. the angle of attack? Obama is NOT visiting his ailing grandmother in Hawaii. He has gone back there to help fake his own birth certificate (again, apparently) so that he can produce yet another birth certificate which will quiet all the people (meaning these Republicans) who were not satisfied with the first faked birth certificate. By the way, they are intimating in advance that the next one will be fake, too. If you would like to delve further into this theory, please check it out.

Obligatory retarded post on freerepublic.com about this theory: “I question the timing too. Sick grandma? When did he ever care about her before? He’s going over there to get his newly-forged copy of his birth certificate — it was too dangerous to have it FED-EXED. He’s going to crease it up in a letterfold and bring it
back in a book he took with him on the plane.” — More fun like that one, right here.

TREMENDOUS ISSUE NO. 2: OMG! And you thought Rev. Jeremiah Wright was bad. Wait until you hear about this dude that Obama talked to and mentioned in his book authored a book about having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. And get this — this book is totally autobiographical, too. Not fictional at all. This dude is a sick and twisted pervert, the kind we stomp into the ground and leave bloody on the curb of life. His association with Barack Obama serves only to illustrate exactly how un-American and pro-sex-with-13-year-olds Barack Obama really is. If Obama was any kind of man, he would step up right now and categorically deny that he enjoys making sweet love to pubescent girls. But he won’t do that so we are left to guess. Was Obama trained in pro-kid-sex viewpoints by this man whom he has spoken to in the past? Or did he reach his pro-kid-sex stance on his own, through years of kid-fucking experience? A website named Confederate Yankee has all the information you need.

Bonus fun quote about this theory: (The headline on Free Republic says it all: “OBAMA SEX PERV SCANDAL”. But quotes are not hard to find, either) “I got the distinct feeling from something I read recently, that his grandfather was a pervert, too. He introduced (Obama) to this dirtbag and apparently, they all sat around drinking together. Someone else pointed out something interesting; that Davis states he molested a 13-year-old girl named Ann. They speculated this could be (Obama’s) mother and that this loser fathered (Obama) — they do look alot more alike than BO Sr. Apparently, Davis also lived in Kansas for a while.”

You can’t teach this kind of creativity, folks. But I’m more partial to this succint reply: “So, if true, we could end up with a Pedophile in Chief.”

Nice. Very nice. More like that here.

TREMENDOUS ISSUE NO. 3: This one is not crazy just disingenuous, and it will undoubtedly be used at the first sign of stagnating poll numbers for Obama. If I were a McCain adviser, I would certainly suggest they use it as soon as McCain has a good day in the polls.

The narrative goes thusly: Why can’t Barack Obama close the deal? Why do his supporters balk when the finish line is in sight? He rolled to a huge lead over Clinton before almost letting her come back to catch him (things didn’t quite happen exactly like that, but it’s close enough to drive the story). He built up a big lead during the summer, only to let john McCain close the gap after the convention. Now he’s built a nearly-insurmountable advantage, and his supporters are backing away? What is it about Obama that makes voters get cold feet at the last minute? Is it his arrogance in assuming he has already won? Is it laziness on the part of his campaign? Or is it something else — something voters can’t put their finger on, but intuitively understand: Electing Obama as President would be a big step in the wrong direction. Voters know this in their hearts, even if they are bombarded with “facts” from the “media” telling them that Obama is “the One”.

This is the line of attack I am expecting. I think it would resonate with independents, who are hopeful but are also a little afraid. It would certainly fire up the base and it also manages to inject, without being too blatant about it, the “otherness” that the Republicans must hope scares voters away from Obama at the last minute.

That, or a they’ll pull out a busted terror cell that was planning to attack America on the night of the election if Barack Obama was elected. That fits much more with the action-thriller of danger and International intrigue that could swing voters towards McCain in a time of fear.

Those are the sort of things I am waiting for. And I know that something wicked this way comes. The spider-sense is tingling. Historic shit like this doesn’t just happen in a cakewalk. And if it does happen that way, it shouldn’t. What are we going to tell our grandchildren we did in the three weeks leading up to an historic occasion? “Oh, we sat around and watched the poll numbers stay steady. Obama held a few rallies, McCain said some stuff and then we voted.”

Where’s the thrill of a narrow victory for the Forces of Good in that? I want my damned epic narrative arc — not an overdone denouement masquerading as the climax of an epic tale. If I wanted that I’d just watch The Return of the King on DVD.

Hey, McCain campaign. You guys wanna talk sexism?

I’m pretty sure that’s a discussion Hillary Clinton is itching to have with you. Her and a few other notable female politicians.

The conventions are over, and now this election is about to get gully. Barack Obama is going to keep himself above the flailing, let loose the Hilldogs of War and force-feed the GOP some of their own medicine.

I may be biased, but I’m also a fan of watching American politics as though it were a new type of sport; some sort of full-contact hybrid of chess, the NFL and Calvinball.

From that perspective — the Obama camp’s response to cries of ’sexism’ by the GOP could be something of a coup.

John McCain has tried to siphon away Hillary Clinton voters by running a woman as his VP, while at the same time choosing a hard-right, private-health-care, book-banning woman in an attempt to solidify his somewhat shaky standing with the Republican base.

Not only that, but his campaign has then turned around and played the sexism card in response to any criticism of this woman. Keep in mind, that’s the same card they mocked mercilessly when Clinton tried to play it in March.

I am sure there is some lingering bitterness between Clinton and Obama. They are human, after all, and it’s only natural.

I’m also pretty sure that Hillary Clinton is a feminist and a politician first. So I’m pretty sure she’s been getting royally pissed off over the last few days of the GOP convention. There’s also a slight chance that she has been watching this clip and debating which pantsuit would look better on her during the evisceration she is about to perform:

You see, judging by what I’ve noticed in the past three years or so, if you’re a female politician who is very new to the national stage, has repeatedly voiced loud opposition to a woman’s right to choose, has mocked the idea that the government should provide health care for everyone and then called sexism whenever someone tried to call you on it … you don’t really wanna fuck with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Whatever rancor may exist between Hillary and Barack, it’s nothing compared to challenging everything she has fought for as a legislator, and as a woman, over the past 20 years.

That’s the problem with playing the sexism or racism or even ageism cards — you take the risk that your opponent won’t just find an accomplished woman, black person or old dude who can tear you to shreds while saying, ‘Hey — I’m female/black/old, too, and these people are still retards.’

And the problem with having a very inexperienced and (in the opinion of many) unqualified woman play this card, is that you risk having women with far more clout behind their names blow you out of the water.

It’s not just Hillary itching to get after Sarah Palin. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius kicked things off yesterday:

“She mastered the words written by the Bush speechwriters and delivered them well. But what we didn’t hear was what people talk to me about every day,” Sebelius told reporters.

The real feminists also don’t like it when you pander to them. And it is difficult to charge Gloria Steinem with sexism and be taken seriously:

Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”

So what are you going to do? Barack Obama didn’t say any of this. He doesn’t have to. He just gets to keep making awesome speeches and rising above the fray.

Unless, of course, the competition is also dumb enough to make fun of community organizers, then he gets to join in on the fun:

“The question I have for them is: Why would that kind of work be ridiculous?
Who are they fighting for? What are they advocating for?”

Every time the GOP trots out condescending smears like “Ooooohh, he’s a community organizer …” I get all nervous for about 30 seconds. Then I remember that Barack Obama is not John Kerry and that he really does know how to brush that kind of dirt off his shoulder.

I don’t always enjoy speaking in Internet and video game lingo … but that, as the kids say, is pwnage.

… you can only hope to contain her.

This whole thing has now become a lolection.

I should quit the posts completely and devote my time to captioning pictures of Sarah Palin with “I can has veep nao?” and the like.

I could have spent the entire day at my computer, writing a new post every time I saw a Palin scandal, and I’d barely have time to keep up.

Remember when Hillary Clinton claimed the snipers were shooting at her? Aside from the gunfire, what’s the difference between saying that and claiming your refueling stopover was a trip to Ireland that counts as foreign policy experience?

From Politico today:

I wrote the other day that a Palin spokeswoman said trips to Germany, Kuwait and Ireland made up her foreign travel.

Two details worth clarifying:

The Ireland trip was a refueling stop on her trip to military installations in Germany and Kuwait, spokeswoman Maria Comella said.

Nice.

A couple of years ago, the overnight Montreal-Toronto bus that I was on stopped on a Reservation near Kingston, Ont. so that the driver could buy cheap smokes at 2 a.m.

I didn’t know had had experience in Native Affairs. That’s kind of cool.

Seriously?

As I type, in the last 36 hours we’ve found out that Sarah Palin’s daughter is pregnant with the child of a teen who admittedly doesn’t want kids; that Sarah believes the Iraq war is Godly; that she belonged (along with her husband) to an organization lobbying for Alaskan independence; that she ran a car wash into the ground in her younger days; that she has hired lawyers to protect her and her staff during a growing corruption probe; that she attempted to ban books from the library immediately after winning a mayoral election; that her own mother-in-law may not vote for her; that her staff tried to pass off a refueling stop as a “visit” to a country … and that she has a pastor just as crazy as Barack Obama’s.

Thirty. Six. Hours.

That’s why I’m writing this post. If Sarah Palin can get all that out there, I can at least update the blog twice.

I’m not going to be snarky, angry, disgusted, repulsed, horrified, sarcastic, wryly amused or even righteously indignant about the American election today.

It’s more effective (and so much fun!) to simply dig through massive amounts of news stories, blogs and political analysis in order to find a bunch of quotes that have gone public in the last few days and let readers wonder why the GOP ticket of John McCain/Sarah Palin has even a snowball’s chance in hell of winning in November. As any half-decent journalist knows, a good quote can speak for itself.

These quotes are all real, all sourced and not intentionally taken out of context:

• “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” — Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain
• “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that … Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.” — Sarah Palin, on the Iraq war
• “We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. … Jesus called us to die. You’re worried about getting hurt? He’s called us to die. Listen, you know we can’t even follow him unless you are willing to give up your life. … I believe that Jesus himself operated from that position of war mode. Everyone say “war mode.” Now you say, wait a minute Ed, he’s like the good shepherd, he’s loving all the time and he’s kind all the time. Oh yes he is — but I also believe that he had a part of his thoughts that knew that he was in a war.” — Sarah Palin’s pastor, Ed Kalnins, senior pastor of Wasilla Assembly of God since 1999.
• “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” — John Stein, former mayor of Wasilla.
• “Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.” — Sarah Palin, when asked if she was offended by the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. (The words “under God” were added in 1954; the pledge was written in 1892. The founding fathers were all … ummm … dead by then.)
• “I realized months ago that Obama can get away with just about anything because all that too many Americans seem to care about are charisma and the term “change.” It doesn’t matter if Obama plagiarizes speeches, who his pastor and spiritual mentor was for 20 years, that he has the most liberal voting record in the Senate, that he refused to wear the American flag as a pin, that he didn’t place his hand over his heart during the national anthem, that his wife just recently has become proud of her country, or that he is sympathetic to Muslim terrorist groups, etc.” — Chuck Norris, discussing Barack Obama.
• “I don’t want kids.” — Levi Johnston, the poor boy who is being forced into fatherhood by his mom-in-law to be, on his since-deleted MySpace page.
• “I’m a fuckin’ redneck who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes. But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some shit and just fuckin’ chillin’, I guess. Ya fuck with me I’ll kick ass.” — More from Levi. Hey, at least he likes hockey!
• “(We) vetted her through Google and clipping services. They didn’t send lawyers there or talk to people who knew her.” — A GOP official with ties to the McCain campaign, speaking of the thorough research behind his choice of VP candidate.

But the final and — in a stunning sign of the current state of political discourse in the United States — most coherent political argument of the day goes to … Lindsay Fucking Lohan:

• “The real problem comes from the fact that we are taking the focus off of getting to know Sarah Palin and her political views, and what she can do to make our country a less destructive place. It’s distracting from the real issues, the real everyday problems that this country experiences.
  I am concerned with the fact that Sarah Palin brought attention to her daughter’s pregnancy, rather than all world issues and what she believes she could possibly do to change them — if elected. I get Sarah Palin’s views against abortion, but I would much prefer to hear more about what she can do for our country rather than how her daughter is going to have a child no matter what.
  Maybe focus on delivering some words and policy with stronger impact like Joe Biden.” — Lindsay Lohan, writing about the Palin controversy on her (God help us all) political blog.

When a woman best known for her underwhelming acting ability, terrible pop music, public intoxication, rampant promiscuity and the red hair that frames the lips of her vagina is asking you to please discuss the issues … maybe that’s a sign.

I love it.

Now that I’ve taken a few deep breaths … now that I am no longer so quick to become scornful and condescending over how ridiculously superficial American politics can be when the Fate Of The Whole Wide World is hanging in the balance … now that I’ve realized that Canadians won’t ever allow our political discourse to sink to these depths.

Now … I fucking embrace shit like this. Can’t get enough.

The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.

If I highlighted the above paragraph, cut it out, and pasted it back into an All My Children episode summary in Soap Opera Digest … how out of place would it look?

By the way … to make matters just a little bit more fun … This is from a Q&A form filled out by Sarah Palin while she was a Gubernatorial candidate:

3. Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

Heh. Well, you get what you pay for Sarah. Good luck with all that.

Hopefully, at least if Barack Obama wants to win this election, he’ll tiptoe around this issue and let the 24/7 networks (as well as idiot bloggers from Canada who revel in wallowing in the mud of our neighbours) play around with it.

It accomplishes nothing for him to mention the personal issues of his rival’s running mate. It would give the McCain campaign proof that the Obama campaign isn’t as high-minded as Barack claims. It would also give Sarah Palin a Cheney-esque “Leave my family out of this! They aren’t running for office!” moment that — no matter how silly and contrived … Sarah Palin is running on a family-values-abstinence-works-no-sex-till-marriage platform, remember? — a number of mouthbreathers would absolutely get behind.

So yeah … Obama should leave this alone. But me? I fucking love it. Better than the NFL playoffs; and with fewer illegitimate children!

Speaking of which … you know the only way this could get any better?

Well … if that there baby comes out of the womb blacker than Barack Obama … that would be … just perfect.

*****

UPDATE: Obama does exactly what he should do regarding the Palin family’s dirty little teen sex revelation:

“I have said before and I will repeat again: People’s families are off limits,” Obama said. “And people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics.”

— From Politico.