Someone has suggested that Sarah Palin may, after assessing the ruin of her political career, consider joining The View, if asked. While the idea is plausible in the abstract, it is highly implausible in reality. Looking for a job outside elective politics makes sense. Jumping butt naked into a cactus pit doesn’t.
Women of The View: The quickest and most efficient way to de-fang Sarah Palin - From left - Whoopi Goldberg, Joyce Behar, Sherri Shepherd, Barbara Walters, and the runt of the litter, Elizabeth Hasselback.
What are Sarah’s options? Well, getting her own talk show probably makes the most sense ( see this cyberaxis post). It’s the no-brainer answer to the question: What you do with a wise-crackin’, moose shootin’ , easy flirtin’ hockey mom from Wasilla after she makes an ill-fated media splash in a bruising national election?”. Joining women of “The View” is not out of the question as long as she decides to make nice with Whoopi, Joyce, Barbara and Sherri ….. on top of avoiding Charlie Gibson/ Katie Couric moments.
Otherwise, Mrs. Palin would be eaten alive on the snack meal plan. Elizabeth Hasselback knows the feeling.
Palin: Own talk show diva or studio gad-about with women of The View? Fat chance with Whoopi!
My feeling is that, if Palin ever joined the view, she would pipe way down and laugh off most of the things she said on the campaign trail. If she did that she could actually bring a lot to the show.
Taking on the formidable trio of Whoopi, Joyce and Barbara would be the quickest way to lose her bouffant. Talk about being outclassed, out-smarted and out-GUNNED? Well, she would be. Between the three of them Sarah Palin would just be a piece of luncheon meat on toasted sourdough bread.
Which brings to mind a Time Magazine piece by Belinda Luscombe which makes a debatable contention about “Why Some Women Hate Sarah Palin.” Luscombe thinks it goes beyond politics. Quote:
“Women are weapons-grade haters. Hillary Clinton knows it. Palin knows it too. When women get their hate on, they don’t just dislike, or find disfavor with, or sort of not really appreciate. They loathe — deeply, richly, sustainingly. I do not say this to disparage my gender; women also love in more or less the same way.” Belinda Luscombe, Time Magazine, Oct. 2, 2008
High school may be many miles away from The View, but who really knows? If Whoopi, Joyce or Barbara decided any or all of Luscombe’s three points of “the Abbotsleigh test” were adequate matters for casus belli, who could stop them ….. or blame them for that matter?
The problem of people driving under the influence of YAP, which is talking on a cell phone while driving, cuts much deeper and wide than most people realize. And the reason has to do with the exponential proliferation of cell phones, a technology that American laws, not to mention customs and personal habits, have yet to catch up with. Meanwhile the number of people hurt or killed by one-handed/half-brained drivers are being under-reported to the detriment of awareness about the insidious problem.
Laws to mandate hands-free usage are cropping up all over the United States but they seem to be founded on a fallacious distinction between hand held and hands-free devices when it comes to driving. Experts say there IS no distinction. The most recent studies out of the University of Utah say the devices make no difference because it is the talking that is the distraction. (More details on this revealing study later.)
ICONOGRAPH: Forget about the grunting forbearer, the hirsute monster hunting down small fauna with the thigh-bone of a wooly mastodon; the primitive stage of human evolution will one day be represented by a monkey with a cell phone glued to its ear.
YAP is talk which impairs the driver in the same way that alcohol does. It impairs cognition and attention by turning one’s focus inwards – to a world of thoughts and images related to a conversation – instead of outwards where danger lurks around every corner of the road. (Anyone who has ever been engaged in a intense phone dialogue can remember times when one couldn’t account for the time between driving from point A to B.)
California State University, Dominguez Hills psychology professor Larry Rosen, explains the psychology behind this phenomenon:
“If you talk to somebody on a phone, you only get a limited number of cues, as opposed to looking at someone when you can see their demeanor, their facial expressions,” he explained. “When you don’t have those cues, your brain has to work hard to fill them in and having to work extra hard means you’ll be paying little attention to the road.”
And because of this, Rosen thinks that the hands-on versus the hands-free is a distinction without difference which, in his view, makes the new law rather “ludicrous.” (Shelley Leachman, Staff Writer, DailyBreeze.Com, Will hands-free drive home safely?)
THE CALIFORNIA EXPERIENCE
There are jesters who have poked fun at California’s new hands-free law, but Jokes aside, there is probably more to the state’s contention that cell phones are the number one cause of distracted-driving accidents, than fodder for legislative propaganda.
Months after passing its first cell phone hands free law on July 1, 2008, there is disquieting evidence that a lot of Californians don’t give a damn about the new law. A Mercurynews.com report article compiled by Gary Richards seems to indicate that members of the public are not seeing much of a change in road behavior when it comes to hands-on cell phone use since July 1.
“Q I’m curious. Have the police and Highway Patrol stopped enforcing the hands-free cell law? On my four-mile commute from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara one day I counted eight drivers on their cell phones. One was going 35 mph down Central Expressway! “… I only drive about 20 to 30 miles a day, but hardly a day goes by that I don’t notice half a dozen people talking with cell phones in their hands. “… I see just as many folks today yapping on their hand-held phones and driving just as carelessly and cluelessly as before the ban. So is there a law against this or not?”
W. Dolby, Don Bentley, Bob Anderson and many more
“A I could print nothing but complaints like this for a week, as readers and some cops say a growing number of drivers are ignoring the hands-free law that went into effect July 1. The CHP has issued more than 35,000 tickets statewide, a figure that does not include citations from city police departments.
What’s happening here is what happened in New York when that state banned hand-held phones in 2001. Motorists heeded the law for a while, but police issued 142,000 tickets that year. Now, the tally is about 270,000 a year.
Going hands-free has some advantages, with a recent study by the Public Policy Institute of California showing that motorists with two hands on the wheel have lower crash rates when in heavy traffic or driving in bad weather. But other studies show that driving while on a cell phone is dangerous, be it hands-free or not. Overall, reaction times slow so badly when talking on the phone while behind the wheel that it’s similar to driving drunk. You see drivers running red lights, going much slower than the pace of traffic, and doing so many stupid things. So get off the phone — period!
Two thoughts: The $100 fine for a first offense is too low and needs to be at least doubled. And this should be made a moving violation that would send a driver to traffic school or face higher insurance costs.” Gary Moore, Roadshow: Abuse of hands-free cell phone law appears widespread. MercuryNews.Com (Article now under archives)
Things to learn from all this:
1. Current fines, at $100 for the first offense, are just too low to effect change in people’s behaviors. Au contraire, an initial fine of $300 or more for the first offense, like gas at the $4 a gallon price-point, seems to be the critical point-of-pain at which people will start to change habits.
2. In addition to increased fines, the state needs to make offenses a moving violation with points assessed on the driver’s record. This results in increased insurance costs. Truism: Most drivers are more afraid of their insurance man in a Brooks Brothers suit than a cop hiding in the bushes with a radar gun.
3. People are probably too comfy in their ability to not be spotted by cops. Like the seat-belt law, the cell phone law requires intimate visual contact before a person can be pulled over and cited for a violation. A paradigm shift will occur only when local, county and state police engage in massive enforcement campaigns with hundreds of police in unmarked cars busting offenders left right and center.
Handicap: The exceptions given to police and “emergency personell” to use cell phones without headset devices has really taken the edge or moral persuasiveness of the cause behind this law. As in the case of emergency parking, it is really doubtful that every policeman yapping on a cell phone without a headset is on a emergency call.
According to an MSNBC report: “New York, the first state to enact a hands-free law in 2001, reported 1,170 crashes from 2001 through 2006 where handheld cell phones were considered a factor, versus 214 involving hands-free devices, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.”
The Brock: Brock Lesnar, new UFC heavyweight champion. Big fists, big & bigger expectations. How will he be accepted by MMA hard core fans?
For better or worse, Brock Lesnar is built like a cartoon action hero; with the down side being that people expect him to move like one too. So when he moves cautiously and tentatively as was the case in last night’s title fight against Randy Couture, he ends up looking like a dud, even in victory. This is exactly what happened at the much hyped and curiously anticipated UFC 91 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV last night (Nov. 15, 2008).
Lesnar’s “victory” came in at 3.07 minutes of round two after a glancing blow to the head (behind Couture’s left ear) brought the aging champion down.
Lesnar moved in on the supine Couture with a series of awkward one-handed chops to the face which led the referee to jump in and stop the fight.
This sudden end did nothing to spice up a fight which had been characterized more by droll clinches than by brilliant punches or holds. (Even the lack-luster under-card produced more thrilling moments than the ballyhooed marquee event. That is just how bad things were last night.) What will forever stick in my mind is the picture of a suddenly energized Lesnar, frantically and awkwardly wailing on Couture with the edge of his hand like a school girl. Like they say down in Texas, “It darn wa’rnt pretty that pi’ture.”
Randy Couture: Still a legend in the eyes of MMA stalwarts.
Colonial, a fan at MMA Fanhouse describes these strikes as “cheesy little hammerfists haven’t knocked anyone out yet. He looks like he is hitting for points rather than damage most of the time.”
Lesnar walked away with the belt, but not the aura of the man he had just defeated. The fight was not what the peanut gallery had paid to see ….. Definitely not the stuff of its wet dreams.
Monsieur Couture, au contraire, walked away a winner just for standing up to a brute who was supposed to pound him into the ground and wipe the octagon with his blood. He has nothing to be ashamed of concerning his showing in this contest. If anything, he proved that MMA has a cadre of technicians – erstwhile custodians of skills and values that transcend brute force. The old lion had to contend with a size and age differential of 50 pounds and 14 years respectively. The 15-month break from fighting was probably the least of Couture’s disadvantages because , as he said in his post-fight interview, his training was as close to the real deal as anyone could get outside the actual octagon.
Meanwhile, smarmy Dana White has a problem to contend with. If he was looking for a new poster boy for hi the heavyweight division, he struck out last night because Brock Lesnar ain’t it. He may have the pumped-up pecs for it, but he sorely lacks the style and substance to be “The One” in the way Chuck Liddell perhaps was. Love or hate Chuck’s one trick schtick, he put most of his opponents away with a pizazz that lent a lot “schizzle” to MMA in general and UFC in particular.
The fact of the matter is that Lesnar now has an element of the Mike Tyson problem after Buster Douglas bust his chops and Evander Holyfield exposed his vulnerabilities. The aura of presumed invincibility left Lesnar the day Frank Mir put a sneaky leg lock on him and the Heath Herring drew him out into a rope-a-dope snoozer of a fight. Lesnar has come to be the MMA equivalent of a Shaquille O’Neal; a man who wins games but doesn’t have what it takes to be the quintessential symbol of the NBA a la Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James or Kevin Garnet. The same Shaq who is as famous for winning games for his team is also known as for tossing bricks at the free-throw line.(Remember “hack a Shaq“?) Barring some mercurial transformation of his chops (no pun intended), Lesnar seems destined for that checkered reputation; i.e. being valued more for his heft than his sharpness. It’s not good enough for what Dana White has in mind for his flagship organization, and it certainly isn’t good enough for what Lesnar traded in when he left the WWE ring.
Meanwhile Randy has some thinking to do. Noone who saw him last night thought he didn’t have one or two fights left in him. However with so much new talent coming into the UFC/MMA, he needs to be plotting a more dignified exit before he encounters his own Ken Shamrock or Royce Gracie moment.
Frenzied coup de gras: Lesnar pounds on a prone Couture after a blow behind left ear felled the aging champion.
It is either Lesnar bouncing Couture off the octagon floor and raining those Cro-Magnon fists on his head till the referee jumps in and stops the fight in the first round or a rope-a-dope match a la Lesnar vs Herring, in which case the odds will favor Couture winning this fight. It’s that simple.
Couture winning this match will prolong the nascent excitement in the heavy weight division and set the stage towards the much drummed up Fedor Emelianenko/Randy Couture match-up.
UFC 91: Tonight’s fight live from Las Vegas 9pm EST and 7pm PST and on pay per view, is the biggest fight in the heavyweight division in a long time, (but as CNN’s Ben Fowlkes rightly points out, its undercard sucks lemons.) Couture, a legend and all-round nice guy cemented his reputation when he showed the chinks in Chuck “the Iceman” Liddell’s armor. This is a guy whose stand-up game is almost as good as his prodigious wrestling skills. On the ground, the Couture will prevail. But first, he will have to weather and survive the hyper-physical barrage of Brock Lesnar; the most formidable athlete the UFC has ever known. Lesnar is to Couture, what Drago was to Rocky: a spectral specimen of near pure physicality. And he has the speed and agility of someone in a much lighter division. Couture has a bigger chance of being seriously hurt or bruised in this fight.
So I am putting my money on Lesnar. TKO in the first round; which is gonna be a real problem for fans forking out $45 for pay per view, given the relative obscurity of the undercard. Dana White should have given more thought to this, but he is as he has always been; a tool.
Couture (left) and Lesnar (right)a: Renaissance man versus Cro-magnon man and experience versus youth.
UPDATE: My post stands as is – the way it was posted 8 hours before the fight on 11/15/08. The fight is done. My prediction was right, although I was off by one round. Lesnar won in round two instead of one as I had predicted. What I failed to foresee was just how dull the fight was gonna be. The boys at UFC went too crazy with the hype soup. See my report on that here.
Schmooze-licious Big "O", putting the WIN in Winfrey: Inadvertent or not, Oprah's stock has just gotten a major boost from the other "Big O".
Now that Barack Obama has won, people will forgive Oprah ….The ones who held her support of Barack Obama against her that is. It has to do with the psychology or sociology of winning. People love winners, and the people who back them. If not, they tolerate them. And the reason for doing this may have something to do with the surmise that those who back winners know something everyone else doesn’t.
Flip flop much? The View co-host & McCain-Palin campaigner does a 180 degrees on Obama
For shrill ingenue and right-wing sound-box, Elizabeth Hasselback (nee Filarski), it was the talk show equivalent of taking “the morning after pill” …… or downing some potent nostrum after a sorority binge.
The occasion was the day after Barack Obama’s stunning victory in the presidential election with the vacuous blonde set to eat post election crow after her screechy defense of the McCain/Palin ticket. The issue was not whether she had the right to support or campaign for the McCain/Palin or not, but what sentiments she would express in the wake of a historic election that had unleashed a tidal wave of joy throughout the land. Remember that the unarticulated subtext of this dialogue – even on the level of quasi-entertainment – had always been race; that is when people listen to Elizabeth Hasselback on “The View”, are they just dealing with her so-called conservative views, or are we dealing with something motivated or tinged with race or racism. That is the element that “sub-texturally” places Hasselback in the hot seat with Whoopi, Joyce and Barbara in one corner and Hasselback in the other.
To the credit of Whoopi, Joyce and Barbara they showed a lot of grace in victory; eschewing the adage that crow is best served cold:
Barbara didn’t waste time ribbing Hasselback though. “All eyes are on you,” said Walters turning the Resident Republican on the show. She opened a gusher with that one. Hasselback launched into spin or confessional mode (depending on your view.) Before long she was claiming victory too and declaring that Barack Obama was indeed a gifted man. Out of the mouths of babes indeed ……
Just two quick points of detail:
1. As if symbolism mattered to anyone beyond her make-believe world, Elizabeth was wearing drab black. Yes she was. And if you listen carefully you can see that she is tripping all over herself to make her points in the space given her by Barbara.
2. Elizabeth’s response had all the ear-marks of a canned speech, carefully calculated to make her look like she was celebrating the historicity of Obama’s election and bequeathing to her daughter values of inclusiveness. If this clip doesn’t show the nakedly manipulative side of Elizabeth Hasselback that was also patently on view when Michelle Obama visited “The View”, then I don’t know what does.
Check both clips out and be your own judge. Now concerning the post-election clip, please note that the ABC video below is way clearer than the Youtube one following it:
The pundits and pollsters have been talking and early voters have cast their votes, but it is nothing compared to what is about to happen to us.
“Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.” (W.B. Yeats)
I do not have a crystal ball, but I have this.
Barack Obama, John McCain. John McCain, Barack Obama. It is not the beginning or end of the world, but it sure feels like it. Barack Obama represents symbolic, if not substantive change: a break with the past that is as exhilarating as it it terrifying. There is hope …. and fear and fear that is mixed with hope. What will carry the day when one is standing alone in that isolated booth?
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
(*W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming)
The prank call to Sarah Palin – an unsettling comedy of errors and manners – is brainchild of two Canadian radio pranksters, Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel. The notorious duo from Montreal’s CKOI-FM radio station, got through to Palin yesterday (11/01/08) while pretending to be French President, Nicholas Sarkozy. The thick fake accent which Palin could not quickly fathom, became a treacherous set up for a potentially embarrassing exchange as the transcript below will show.
On a bad day, it could have happened to anyone, but as it unfolded it revealed a giant loophole protocosl for screening calls from people purporting to be dignitaries. How the comedy duo got the Palin aide phone number would be an interesting story, in and of itself.
The “Masked Avengers” comedy duo are well known in Montreal for making prank calls to politicians and celebrities. Duo member Marc Antoine-Audette describes the Palin prank as “the best one (they) have ever done.”
Palin punked by Canadian jokesters.
Here is the complete transcript of the call:
HANDLER: This is Betsy.
RADIO HOST: Hello, Betsy.
HANDLER: Hi
RADIO HOST: This is Frank l’ouvrier (Translated: Frank the worker) I’m with President Sarkozy, on the line for Governor Palin., I am with president Sarkozy, on the line for Gov. Palin
HANDLER: Yes, one second please. Can you hold on one second, please?
RADIO HOST: Yeah, no problem.
HANDLER: Alright, thanks.
HANDLER 2: Hi, I’m gonna hand the phone over to her.
RADIO HOST: OK, thank you very much, I’m gonna put the president on the line
GOV. SARAH PALIN: This is Sarah.
RADIO HOST: Uh yeah, Gov. Palin?
GOV. PALIN: Hello.
RADIO HOST: Just hold on for President Sarkozy, one moment.
GOV. PALIN: Oh, it’s not him yet. I always do that.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Gov. Palin.
GOV. PALIN: I’ll just have people hand it to me right when it’s him.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy: The man Palin thought she was talking to.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, hello, Mrs. Governor?
GOV. PALIN: Hello, this is Sarah. How are you?
FAKE SARKOZY: Fine, and you? This is Nikolas Sarkozy speaking. How are you?
GOV. PALIN: (A gushingly solicitous Palin) Oh, so good, it’s so good to hear you. Thank you for calling us.
FAKE SARKOZY: Oh, it’s a pleasure.
GOV. PALIN: Thank you sir. We have such great respect for you, John McCain and I. We love you, and thank you for taking a few minutes to talk to me.
FAKE SARKOZY: I followed your campaigns very closely with my special American advisor, Johnny Halliday.
GOV. PALIN: Yes, good.
FAKE SARKOZY: Excellent, are you confident?
GOV. PALIN: Very confident, and we’re thankful that polls are showing that the race is tightening.
FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I know very well that the campaign can be exhausting. How do you feel right now, my dear?
GOV. PALIN: I feel so good, I feel like we’re in a marathon and at the very end of the marathon you get your second wind and you plow through the finish.
FAKE SARKOZY: You see, I got elected in France because I’m real, and you seem to be someone who’s real as well.
GOV. PALIN: Yes, Nikolas we so appreciate this opportunity.
FAKE SARKOZY: You know, I see you as a president one day too.
GOV. PALIN: Haha, maybe in eight years.
FAKE SARKOZY: Well, I hope for you, you know we have a lot on common because personally, one of my favorite activities is to hunt, too.
GOV. PALIN: Oh, very good, we should go hunting together.
FAKE SARKOZY: Exactly, we could go try hunting by helicopter like you did. I never did that. Like we say in France, (says long French-sounding phrase).
GOV. PALIN: Well, I think we could have a lot of fun together as we’re getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone that way.
FAKE SARKOZY: I just love killing those animals, mm mm, taking away life, that is so fun. I would really love to go as long as we don’t bring vice president Cheney, haha.
GOV. PALIN: (WITH WEIRD LAUGH) No, I’ll be a careful shot, yes.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, you know we have a lot in common because from my house I can see Belgium. That’s kind of less interesting than you.
GOV. PALIN: Well, see, we’re right next door to other countries that we all need to be working with, yes.
FAKE SARKOZY: Some people said in the last days, and I thought that was mean, that you weren’t experienced enough in foreign relations, and you know, that’s completely false, that’s the thing I said to my great friend, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stef Carse.
GOV. PALIN: Well, you know, he’s doing fine too, when you come into a position underestimated, it gives you an opportunity to prove the pundits and the critics wrong. You work that much harder.
FAKE SARKOZY:I, I was wondering because you are also next to him, one of my good friends, also, the prime minister of Quebec, Mr. Richard Z. Sirois, have you met him recently? Did he come to one of your rallies?
GOV. PALIN: I haven’t seen him at one of the rallies, but it’s been great working with the Canadian officials in my role as governor. We have a great cooperative effort there, as we work on all of our resource development projects. You know, I look forward to working with you and getting to meet you personally and your beautiful wife, oh my goodness; you’ve added a lot of energy to your country with that beautiful family of yours.
FAKE SARKOZY: Thank you very much, you know my wife Carla would love to meet you. You know, even though she was a bit jealous that I was supposed to speak to you today.
GOV. PALIN: Well give her a big hug for me.
FAKE SARKOZY: You know my wife if is a singer and a former hot top model. And she’s so hot in bed, she even wrote a song for you.
GOV. PALIN: Oh my goodness, I didn’t know that.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, in French, it’s called Du rouge à lèvres sur une cochonne (Approximate translation: Lipstick on a sow or slut) or if you prefer in English “Joe the Plumber it is Life, Joe the Plumber”.
GOV. PALIN: Maybe she understands the some of the unfair criticism, but I bet you she’s such a hard worker too and she realizes you just plough through that criticism.
FAKE SARKOZY: I just want to be sure, I don’t quite understand the phenomenon Joe the Plumber, that’s not your husband, right?
GOV. PALIN: That’s not my husband, but he’s a normal American who just works hard and doesn’t want government to take his money.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yes, yes, I understand. We have the equivalent of Joe the Plumber in France, it’s called “Marselle the Guy with Bread Under his Armpit”. Oui.
GOV. PALIN: Right, that’s what it’s all about, the middle class and government needing to work for them. You’re a very good example for us here.
FAKE SARKOZY: I seen a bit, but NBC, even Fox News wasn’t an ally, an ally, sorry about as much as usual.
GOV. PALIN: Yes, that’s what we’re up against.
FAKE SARKOZY: I must say, Gov. Palin, I love the documentary they made on your life – you know, Hustler’s “Nailin’ Palin”.
GOV. PALIN: Oh good, thank you.
FAKE SARKOZY: That was really edgy.
GOV. PALIN: Well good.
FAKE SARKOZY: I really loved you. And I must say something else so governor, you’ve been pranked by the Masked Avengers, we’re two comedians from Montreal.
GOV. PALIN: Oh, [sic] we’ve been pranked. What radio station is this?
FAKE SARKOZY: This is for CKOY in Montreal.
GOV. PALIN: In Montreal? tell me there radio station call letters.
FAKE SARKOZY: CK… Hello? If one voice can change the world for Obama, one Viagra can change the world for McCain.
PALIN AID: I’m sorry, I have to let you go, thank you.
FAKE SARKOZY: Yay! Woohoo!
End of transcript.
————————————————————————————————————————————-
CURSORY ANALYSIS:
Palin detractors have really been having a field day with this one, but at a time it looks people are about to close the book on Palin, a sense of perspective is called for because in the larger scheme of things the prank clip just shades in details that her speeches (past and present) and the interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric charted in more substantive strokes. Compared to that, the prank clip is next to nothing beyond portraying a rather obtuse novice, with an evidently inexperienced support crew.
What did the public expect? There were a lot of red flags in that conversation but expecting Sarah Palin to get them, under the circumstances, and respond accordingly was rather expecting too much.
Those who believe in hope, should never underestimate the power of fear and desperation. And come election day this Tuesday, the latter may very well carry the day, if Barack Obama fails to squeak through the eye of the political needle.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming
One has to be living under a rock to not sense the fear that has gripped Republicans in the wake of polls showing dwindling electoral options for Senator John McCain going into the Tuesday’s race. The high pitched hum drowning the voices of those who dare hope is the sound of the Republican machine going into spin overdrive. Obama definitely has their attention – thanks to polls and a media that has already crowned him the most electrifying figure to walk the political stage since JFK.
Nothing seems to be off limits in this struggle. Lies, fabrication and innuendo have become the fungible coin of the realm. It’s as if some secret “May Day All-Points Bulletin” has been put out to all operatives to make sure “Barack Hussein Obama”(their dog whistle tag) does not get elected President of the United States. The messaging has been spiked, the dialogue irretrievably debased.
Because of this, the outcome of Tuesday’s election may very well be closer than polls are suggesting – with the prospect of having it go either way, very real. Remember Florida in 2000? Stay tuned folks.
cyberaxis 
