Q: How difficult has it been for you to sit and watch rather than be playing

PAVEL DATSYUK: Oh, I tell you, just this is not fun to watch. I take in lots of beer.

Me too, Pav. And I don’t even have the luxury of imagining how different things would be if only I was on the ice.

Well, I suppose I do, but even in my over-active imagination, the most I could pull off would be to take a Donald Brashear swing at Evgeni Malkin’s head as he blazes past, then ankle-burn my way over to the penalty box.

And that wouldn’t help anyone.

Pavel Datsyuk in skates and a uniform, however, would look better than a Playboy centrefold right about now. It’s still somewhat unreal that the Wings managed to beat Chicago and take this lead on Pittsburgh without him. It’s pretty staggering, really.

Had you told me, before the playoffs, that Datsyuk would miss most of the conference finals, I wouldn’t even ask you if he was going to play in the Stanley Cup Final, because I would have just assumed we wouldn’t be there.

So … yeah. This is welcome news, and may even cut down on my beer consumption.

(The rest of the Datsyuk/Osgood interview is here.)

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Yeah … this is an essay about JRR Tolkien, the hero’s journey and how it applies to flameouts in the NHL Playoffs. Deal with it.

That's the look.

One of the most common elements of any story, from the most banal of children’s literature to the great epics of all time, is the plucky hero confronting the unknown.

If you took the posters from 100 adventure movies and the covers from 100 fantasy novels, more than half of them would feature the protagonist as he gazes with a mixture of fear and purpose into the abyss of whatever awaits.

It’s not always because he wants to, and it’s never without trepidation and anxiety, but the hero unfailingly works up his courage and forges on. The hero is usually given a chance to back out; to leave the task to others, to escape while there’s still time or to just take the blue pill and “you wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe…”

But they don’t, of course. If they do, there’s no story. If they do, the adventure goes on without them, we all read a different book or see a different movie and nobody remembers or cares about the hero who almost rose to the occasion, but couldn’t quite do it.

Which is why nobody will remember, or care, about the San Jose Sharks. Assuming of course that they proceed to lose the first-round series that they currently trail 2-0 to the Anaheim Ducks.

And while Frodo wished that the ring had never come to him, the Sharks actively worked to qualify for the 2009 playoffs.

I haven’t set this entire post up to make fun of the Sharks (that one is reserved for when they do finally lose) but to try and explain the kind of mentality that produces success in the playoffs, and to try and figure out what’s keeping the Sharks (and what kept all those great — in the regular season anyway — Ottawa Senators teams) from ultimate glory.

There are a few things to consider, and they all deal, as Bilbo so aptly described, with the dangerous business of going out your door.

First, it’s just not that hard to play hockey in the regular season. The schedule is set several months in advance. You can plan travel days, practice days and book your tee times for the three-day November layover in Florida well before the season begins. You know which team you’ll be facing, and then which team you’ll be facing after that. You know that you’ll lose some games and hopefully win a bunch more. You know that a handful of those games will be against the best teams in the league, and that a whole bunch more will be against the bottom-feeders. The rest will be against teams that are solid, but not great. You know, in short, what to expect and when to expect it.
Second, though it seems obvious to say, the stakes in the regular season are low. This applies especially to the Sharks (and the Senators of old). When you’re reasonably sure, before the first puck has been dropped, that you’ll be in the playoffs come April, it doesn’t matter so much if you drop a home game that you should have won — or even if you somehow steal a game you had no business winning. It’ll all balance out and you’ll be there at the end.

Finally, there’s time to fix things. If someone gets hurt, they have time to heal. If the goalie implodes, you can send him home for a week or two to get his head on straight. If the team stinks out the joint, you can fire the coach. And any glaring weakness can be addressed at the trade deadline, which is only a few weeks before the end of the regular season.

So yeah, the regular season is competitive professional hockey, and it would certainly be difficult to predict the outcome of every game. But … it’s a known. It’s expected, it’s familiar and there is a fairly large margin for error.

It’s not a dangerous business and you — assuming you’re a professional who has been playing hockey his entire life — certainly don’t have to go very far out of your door.

The playoffs, though, are unique. Moreso in hockey than in any other sport, they are a dangerous business; a chaotic arena where anything can happen in an instant and the smallest twitch of a skate or bump in the ice can set in motion events that can destroy a team’s season.

“The quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail. But hope remains, if friends stay true.”

Unlike football, basketball, baseball or soccer, where one team tends to control the play (by virtue of possessing the ball at the time) a large part of a hockey game is spent with the puck in nobody’s possession, as it flips and rolls down the ice into the zone, gets tangled among several feet along the boards and careens off the glass and down the ice, waiting to be recovered by the first man who can reach it.

That’s the unexpected. The unknown. You can go to where you think it will be, but it won’t always be there. You don’t even get it back after you give up a goal. You have to win a battle every time you want to possess the puck.

In the regular season, where thousands upon thousands of these battles are fought over months — between some players who know they’ll be in the playoffs, and some players who know they won’t be there — it all tends to even out.

But in the playoffs, the one battle you lose could be the one that kills you. If you’re not prepared for the unexpected, if you’re not willing to face that kind of unknown, you’ll be paralyzed. And then you’ll lose every battle. And then you’ll go home, muttering cliches about how you “didn’t get the bounces”.

Or if you’re Sharks coach Todd McLellan yesterday: “We just didn’t get the puck luck we needed.”

You’re never going to get all the puck luck you need if you’re worried about the puck luck. Thinking about how chaotic and fraught with danger every bounce of the puck can be will leave you so tight you won’t be able to hit an open net.

The puck is going to bounce. You’re going to win some of those bounces and lose them, and McLellan is right that a lot of them will be lucky.

The key thing, in both the hero’s journey and the Quest For The Cup (I probably owe the NHL royalties for typing it with caps like that) comes from embracing the unknown. It’s only when Frodo and the other hobbits find their sense of adventure, when Harry Potter just makes the damn broomstick fly without worrying about the proper way to do it and when Neo looks up at a room of strange people and announces “I know Kung Fu”, that the heroes are able to be effective in their endeavours.

The Sharks faltered the last few weeks of the regular season. So did the Detroit Red Wings. It was only natural on the part of both teams, having long ago locked up home-ice advantage in the playoffs.

But, the difference is, the Sharks felt that to let up, even for a game or two, would cost them as they prepared to launch into the great unknown. They worked hard through the last weeks, losing more than they would have liked, but doing it with the utmost concentration and Very Serious Looks on all their players’ faces.

“If we want to go into the playoffs with a half-hearted effort and we think we’ll turn the switch on, I don’t think that can happen,” said coach McLellan.

They didn’t take any lighthearted moments to remember what they love about the game and why they should be fighting for it — an essential element of any literary hero preparing to go into battle. There’s a reason that Frodo is shown laughing and cavorting in the Shire, and later in Bree, Rivendell and Lothlorien. Moments of untroubled glee are a necessary part of preparing to enter the underworld for a struggle against the unknown.

They were deadly serious all the time and now they can’t loosen up when they desperately need a light moment.

The Red Wings — and I would normally hate to use my favourite team as such a homerific example, but they’re perfect here — on the other hand, allowed themselves a deep breath before the plunge.

“We were a little bored at the end of the season,” said Chris Osgood. “That sounds bad, but it’s honest. We were looking forward to playoffs 100%. We couldn’t wait to get through that last month. I was actually shocked by how many wins we got in March.”

“It’s good we got this over with and no one got hurt in these last two games,” Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. “We get a day off tomorrow and get prepared. It’s not like we haven’t been through it before. We understand what it takes and how hard it is going to be.”

And that’s the difference. The Sharks never took a breath. They’ve been playing as hard as they can all year under the comforting umbrella of the expected regular season. They stressed over the way they were playing in the leadup to the playoffs, and the looming uncertainty made it even more important to be playing as well as possible going into the fray.

Now they’re facing the unknown without a blueprint for handling it. They’ve got a few seasons of failures in their head and no recent success to draw upon. They also don’t have a reserve to dip into and … well … there’s not a lot left.

Right now, if you offered Joe Thornton the blue pill, he’d swallow that motherfucker in a minute.

This didn’t end up happening for a season preview. I blame myself, and my laziness, and the fact that regular season hockey is very boring when you cheer for a team that would qualify for the playoffs as a high seed even if you killed both their goaltenders and forced homeless people into their jerseys.

And having watched much of the Detroit Red Wings 2008/09 March To The Real Season, I’m not entirely sure that didn’t happen.

Regardless, we’re in the playoffs, primed for a cup or a monumental choke job – there’s really not a lot of middle ground for the Wings anymore – and it’s time to make some predictions, through everyone’s favourite forms of lazy-man poetry.

So much like Joe Thornton’s heart as soon as the puck drops tonight … away we go!

Western Conference:

1. San Jose Sharks vs. 8. Anaheim Ducks

Warriors don’t quit
Champions fight through the storm
The Sharks are neither

Will it be Hiller or Giguere?
The answer’s still up in the air
But if the Sharks choke again
(Wait, scratch ‘if’ and say ‘when’)
Then Ducks fans won’t really care

Prediction: Ducks in seven

2. Detroit Red Wings vs. 7. Columbus Blue Jackets

Repeating is hard
Crowned heads do lie uneasy
Steve Mason scares me

There once was a goalie named Chris
Who was booed every time that he missed
But while spouting invective
Fans often neglected
To note the two cups he had kissed

Prediction: Wings in six

3. Vancouver Canucks vs. 6. St. Louis Blues

Happy to be here
Basking in the moment’s glow
For four games at least

An old Swedish fellow named Mats
Had trouble locating his spats
But once he could see,
He exclaimed with glee,
“My teammates are no longer doormats!”

Prediction: Canucks in five

4. Chicago Blackhawks vs. 5. Calgary Flames

Kipper is tired
The Hawks are young and hungry
You figure it out

Like a blue dress that’s been stained with semen
These Flames bear the mark of Mike Keenan
He rode Kipper too hard
Now’s he played his last card
If he thinks they’ll beat the Hawks then he’s dreamin’

Prediction: Chicago in six

Eastern Conference:

1. Boston Bruins vs. 8. Montreal Canadiens

A proud tradition
Winter’s greatest rivalry
Not so much in Spring

When B’s fans get into the hooch,
They’ve been known to holler out “Looch!”
The kid breaks panes of glass
He’ll beat the Habs’ ass
Then they’ll bitch like there’s sand in their cooch.

Prediction: Bruins in five

2. Washington Capitals vs. 7. New York Rangers

Caps are flash and dash
Rangers slow like rocks to sand
I’m rooting for flash

If only Ovechkin could don
The gear that Theodore puts on
The Caps need a goalie
That’s not quite so hole-y
And if they role with Jose, they’ll be gone

Prediction: Caps in seven (with Varlamov in net before the end of it)

3. New Jersey Devils vs. 6. Carolina Hurricanes

Now, a storm gathers
Devils could be exorcised
Can they Ward it off?

A funny thing about momentum
When you’ve got it you’re solid, and then some
As the Canes catch on fire
The Devils perspire
For Sutter, the series is a referendum

Prediciton: Canes in six

4. Pittsburgh Penguins vs. 5. Philadelphia Flyers

A team is a team
More than one or two men strong
Don’t forget it, Pens

There once was a Penguin named Sid
You’ve all heard of the things that he did
After hundreds of points
They were quick to anoint
him ‘The Man’ when he was still a kid

Prediction: Flyers in seven

Like so many other Canadians, and citizens in countries around the world, I offer my profound thanks to the American electorate for making the right decision. After the past eight years, a lot of us doubted you could arise from what seemed a collective stupor in time to act to preserve the ideals of the nation that, when handled properly, is truly the world’s most inspiring state.

That said — there are still more than 55 million rednecks, retards, racists and recidivists that deserve nothing but scorn and derision. They were the folks represented by those dudes who felt the time was right to boo every mention of their next president during John McCain’s concession speech last night.

To those 55 million people, and especially to the idiots who proudly declared their unabashed ignorance and pettiness during an historic live television broadcast, I as: Why do you hate America? Why are you not supporting your new President? Your nation is at WAR, remember? I thought criticism of the president during wartime was treasonous. Fox News taught me that!

I can’t ever remember being as proud of something I had nothing to do with than I am today. I’m still not sure how I feel about it all (okay, that’s a lie, I’m happy as fuck and I can’t stop grinning, but a picture of me looking like a blissful fool wouldn’t make a good blog post). What I mean is that I am at a loss for words. I can only hope that one day I get to feel the same way casting a ballot for somebody as huge majority of you guys did last night.

If that happens, that will mean my country got something right. Just as yours has done.

But this post is not about waxing poetic on the meaning of this historic event. That will come tomorrow, when hopefully I have a littl perspective.

No — this post is about being juvenile. It is about being an ungracious winner. It is about schadenfreude, revelling in the pain ofa long despised enemy and dancing on the carcass of the freshly-slain dragon.

Oh! I’m gonna have so much fun! I’m heading back to freeperville (aka FreeRepublic.com) to take in the sights and sounds of what a Bush-lovin’, Mavericky, Right-Wingin’ bunch of startlingly undereducated adults get a taste of their own medecine.

What follows has not been edited, except where poor spelling and grammar made it nearly unintelligible. Other than that, these are Republicans — self-proclaimed patriotic, country-first, God-fearing, Christian Republicans — reacting to the news that CNN has declared Barack Obama (“that one!”) the President Elect of the United States of America.

I will also attempt (remembering that I did pay to go to journalism school and that one should not wholly abandon fairness even in the spirit of juvenile victory celebrations) to display examples of Freepers who appear concillatory and willing to stand behind their new president. I do not expect much, but we shall see.

My comments are in parantheses. As you can see, most of these America-lovin’ folks are as classy in defeat as they were in victory. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

• I think reality TV started the decline of our culture. Seriously, when people like William Hung can be mega celebrities, something is wrong!

• My tears are for the nation and for the babies who will die as a result of this election. (No. Your tears are for me, and everyone like me who had to suffer through the time when people as backwards as you thought the world’s most important country was moving in the “right” direction. And your tears are as sweet as well-aged mead.)
• And to think Michelle Obama will be the first lady. Why do I have a feeling many people are going to wake up tomorrow and think “my God, what have we done?” The scandals Obama brings with him are going to make the Clintons look like saints. I believe Obama will eventually be ousted in disgrace. Are America’s enemies dancing in the streets yet? (If by “enemies” you mean, people who hated the fact that your ilk ever had a controlling voice in American foreign policy … then yes. Yes. We. Are.)
• I’m also seriously entertaining the idea that Obama may indeed be THE Anti-Christ. Nothing else explains the mass hypnosis effect among the sheeple. If so, be ready, for the Lord draweth nigh. (Wow.)
• Kiss, hug and tell all your family they love you. FReepers will be the first to go. Can’t allow any opposition to the New World Order. (It is this type of comment that makes me wish that this type of comment was true, if that makes any sense.)

• I have the post hammered feeling and I don’t even drink. But right now, I wish my stomach could take it. I lost my best girl friend over this election and have no shoulder to cry on because she’s probably jumping for joy over our new Marxist overlord. (I am so goddamn happy for this dude’s ex-girlfriend right now.)

That felt really good. Now hopefully all Americans can put partisanship aside and get behind President-Elect Obama. Right?

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.

In our ceaseless quest to forcibly inject literature and poetry into the realm of professional sports, we are returning to the poignant haiku and the always-amusing limerick as a means of eloquently and succinctly previewing the coming season for every NHL team.

After all, if you can’t sum up a team’s potential in 17 syllables or a catchy rhyme scheme, then it’s not worth discussing. But we can, and we will, and we’ll do one division every couple of days for the next week or two.

We’ll begin with the NHL’s contribution to the ‘weakest division in sports’ debate: The Southeast Division

Last season:

1. Washington Capitals — 94 points
2. Carolina Hurricanes — 92 points
3. Florida Panthers — 85 points
4. Atlanta Thrashers — 75 points
5. Tampa Bay Lightning — 71 points

This season:

1. Washington Capitals
2. Carolina Hurricanes
3. Tampa Bay Lightning
4. Florida Panthers
5. Atlanta Thrashers

Washington Capitals

Ovie’s Russian friends

Make his winter happier

Ovechkin and Kozlov

Theodore still sucks

_______________

There was an ex-MVP ‘tender

Who tended to go on a bender

But he wouldn’t sip drinks,

he’d just fail at the rinks,

and be chained to the bench by December

Carolina Hurricanes

Now that Staal is signed

what more can we fret about?

Oh right, the defence

_______________

The Cup win is now three years gone

the fanbase is starting to yawn

‘Give us a contender,

or we might not remember

that hockey’s not played on a lawn.’

Tampa Bay Lightning

Franchise was remade

by ambitious millionaires

Not by hockey guys

_______________

A talented skater named Vinny

embarrassed his teammates at shinny,

to the point that they said,

while hanging their heads,

‘It’s clear now — he’s macro, we’re mini.’

Florida Panthers

Come to Florida!

Play some hockey and some golf!

Be home by April!

—————

It’s a tough life, being a Panther

and Bryan McCabe is not the answer

This ex-Leaf won’t aid

your team’s crusade

In fact, he’s a locker-room cancer

Atlanta Thrashers

Fall brings newborn hope

Hope that quickly disappears

when jerseys are donned

_______________

If a team plays in the ‘A’

and to see them nobody will pay,

do they even exist?

If they leave, are they missed?

Or can we just move them away?

Hockey in Atlanta, Georgia

You know what? If Barack Obama honestly believes this, then he’s finished. Done. Cooked. Hopeless. Expired.

And in some of his strongest language yet, Obama suggested that, in its new ad, the McCain-Palin ticket was simply trying to “make stuff up.”

Senator Obama, I know you have spoken time and again about listening to opinions from the global community. You’ve mentioned the need to allow the rest of the world to whisper in those overlarge, Will-Smith-as-Fresh-Prince-style ears that you have. You’ve stressed that the United States cannot exist in a vacuum and that our — speaking as a non-American citizen — views count, too.

So, on behalf of the rest of the world, I offer: Yes, you fucking idiot. Yes, they are.

There is reams of data from all walks of life to back this argument.

There are studies that place the American national IQ at 98, the lowest national average among the world’s developed countries.

There are surveys that find that only 20 – 25 per cent of American are “scientifically savvy and alert.” The rest of them are embarrassingly ignorant:

Dr. Miller’s data reveal some yawning gaps in basic knowledge. American adults in general do not understand what molecules are (other than that they are really small). Fewer than a third can identify DNA as a key to heredity. Only about 10 percent know what radiation is. One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth, an idea science had abandoned by the 17th century.

There are dozens more articles, studies and surveys exactly like these, and you can find them by typing “American stupidity” or “Dumb Americans” into Google. Doing that, Senator, will no doubt depress you. And it should.

But fear not. If you type the same thing into Youtube, you get all sorts of amusing clips:

Who could forget that shining example of how retarded the populace you are currently courting can be?

You have probably never heard of a man named Rick Mercer (or maybe you have, you sometimes seem like you might be into that kind of humour — you know, the kind tinged with ‘elitism’), but I urge you to consult his research before placing your faith in those mouthbreathers who will be punching ballots in two months.

Senator Obama, Americans can be good people and they can do good things, and I hope to God they elect you President.

But a solid percentage of them are so fucking dumb that they can’t find any country aside from America on a map and the depths of their ignorance continues to reveal itself on an almost-daily basis.

If you honestly believe the statement you made above … you are as stump fucking dumb as the rest of them.

Sincerely,

A Canadian Dude

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 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.