Yes, We Can... and We Did!

He did it. On Nov. 4, 2008, Democrat Barack Obama was elected to be the 44th President of the United States. We could go on and on, but what could we say that hasn't already been said? Let's just say that we were thrilled.

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Election Day wasn't perfect, though, the homophobe electorate in California passed Prop 8, and even worse, in Arkansas, the hillbilly contingent came out of the backwoods to vote for a proposition which makes it illegal for gay people to adopt children or even to be foster parents. We'll be discussing those issues in later posts, believe us, but for now, don't be discouraged, Rome wasn't built in a day, the dinosaurs didn't die overnight, and it's going to be take more than one election cycle to clear out the cave man-like thinking and extreme ignorance of the Republican Right. It will happen, it's just going to take time.

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So for now, just revel in Barack Obama's victory, and hold on to your hats for what promises to be one of the most exciting inaugurations in Washinton, D.C. history!

Election Day 2008

For those of us lucky enough to live in the East Village, one of our polling places for the election tomorrow is Cooper Union.

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Take a moment to realize the full circle of history that will come to fruition for this particular, very special location.

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Tomorrow, some of us will help to elect the nation's first Black president at the very location where the NAACP was organized in 1909. The election will occur just a few months short of the 100th Anniversary of that founding. Think about that tomorrow when the line is long and things might seem a little unorganized, it's a very special moment indeed, and well worth the wait.

Laugher of the Day

Here's what we love about the Republicans: their complete and total lack of understanding of the concept of irony.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was at a recent McCain campaign rally ridiculing Obama's skinny arms... this coming from a man who owes his career to steroid use.

That, my friends, is irony.

Who to Hire?

(Barack Obama, my new store manager)

I was reading someone's blog yesterday, the author, like me, is from a "Deep South" state. He wrote a long, very long treatise on why all the polls are wrong and why McCain will still win the Presidency. Maybe so. Anything can happen. But to spend all one's energy wishin' and a-hopin' for a McCain victory is to miss the much larger, and much more important point. McCain is a Republican, and the Republicans don't deserve to win the White House.

I'm sure the blog author and I were raised in a similar environment: small town values that taught us that if you work hard, and play by the rules, the rewards will come. But on the other hand, if you mess up very badly on a job, you'll probably be fired. No great shame; you just slink away, learn your lesson, and come back a better, stronger person. Pretty simple stuff, right? Kind of like "My Pet Goat". Then can someone please explain to me why so many millions of people, especially in the South, are so ready to keep John McCain and his Republicans on the job?

I really don't get it. Whatever happened to that old-fashioned, small town notion that the incompetent are fired, not re-hired? In my world, McCain and the Republicans don't deserve to win this election, they messed up pretty badly on the job for the past eight years. Are the people who plan to vote Republican living in a different world?

If you think McCain and his Republicans deserve to win this election, your thinking must fall into one of three categories: 1. You don't think the Republicans have screwed up the past eight years, or 2. You somehow think that McCain's people won't be the same Republicans who caused all the problems of the past eight years, or 3. You're a mental deficient.

If you believe #1., wow. A disastrous foreign policy, a wrecked economy and an incompetent grasp of social issues is not messing up? What would be "messing up" to you then? No, don't tell me, let's just say that people a whole lot smarter than you, you know, those people that were home reading books while you were out a-huntin' moose, i.e. historians, scientiests, sociologists, economists, etc., are all telling us that George W. Bush will go down in history as one of the worst presidents ever. Ever. Worse than Buchanan, Fillmore, Pierce, oh never mind, you were asleep during history class. Let's just say it's a safe bet that in my hometown, George Bush would have been fired a long time ago.

Or if you believe #2. What, do you think McCain's going to create a mystical, magical "Third Party" of people from which to populate his staff and the Congress who will have no relation to the current Republican Party? Keep dreaming. McCain was a die hard member of the Grand Old Party for the past eight years, and his people will be their people. Maverick? Right. A maverick who voted 92% of the time with George Bush. Hell, he hired some of the same people who slimed him in South Carolina in 2000 to run his campaign in '08. McCain has always been part of the same Republican Party who gave us Iraq, deregulation, Terri Schiavo, etc., and he always will be.

Or if you're #3, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't be voting.

So when I vote this year, I'm going back to those same, small town values with which I was raised to guide me. If the Democrat and the Republican are both working at my grocery store in my hometown, and I need to promote one of them to manager, which do I choose? The Democrat has done well, he's been smart, steady, reliable; while the Republican can't count change, has gotten drunk, stole from my cash register and tried to run off with my wife. Hmm, which do I choose? It's such a tough decision.

Cindy McCain's Forgotten Childhood

For those of you who wondered whatever happened to Cindy Brady. Now you know.

Hall of Shame

(Joseph McCarthy, the infamous Willia Horton ad, and the soon to be permanent resident of Alaska, Sarah Palin)

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We can now add another name to the American political "Hall of Shame", the weasel from Wasilla, Gov. Sarah Palin. In the same way that Joseph McCarthy questioned the "Americaness" of his fellow citizens, and in the same way that the Willie Horton ad played on the most base fears and prejudices of an ignorant populice, Sarah Palin has gleefully decided to drive down that same, slimy road of "smear and fear".

Palin resurrected the William Ayers/Barack Obama association story a few days ago, which was a barely disguised attempt to whip up the toe-counting Republican base and remind them that Barack's background is suspicious, he's different... he hung out with terrorists, maybe he's one himself. Right? You betcha'.

Palin's strategy worked. Now a few days later, various people attending McCain's rallys have shouted "terrorist" and "traitor", referring to Obama, and referring to him as Barack Hussein Obama and finally, today, one old, addled woman told McCain that "Obama is a... a... an Arab". Wow. And another guy stood up and told McCain he was seriously angry because McCain wouldn't go after Obama harder. He told McCain to "Get him! Get him!" The level of anger and vitriol is disturbing, to say the least. Proud of yourself, Sarah?

Sarah, some advice: you're not going to be Vice President. That's obvious at this point. So you have a choice, stop the ridiculous accusations which only serve to humiliate you, and go back to Alaska with some amount of self-respect, or continue on this path and go down in history as one of the most embarrassing footnotes in all of American history.

Blood, Flopsweat and Tears

They say it's not over til the Fat Lady sings... well, as of today, she's just offstage, all warmed up and ready to make her entrance. In just a few weeks, we'll have a new president, and his name won't be John McCain. We don't think the election is even going to be close.

Barack has his largest lead in the daily Gallup poll, and his leads in all the key battleground states is widening with each passing day. And the Republicans know it.

The only thing more scary than the prospect of another Republican-held White House is the extent to which McCain, Palin and their surrogates will grow ever more desperate to hang on to it. First there was McCain's referral to Obama as "that one" in the last debate, (bizarre!), then the campaign's regurgitating of the Obama/William Ayers relationship, and now Cindy McCain's charge that Obama voted against "funding the troops". Laughable.

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People. Don't be fooled. McCain and his beloved Republican Party is an anachronistic and quickly dying party. They know nothing about the economy, how to conduct foreign policy, much less a foreign war, and they're so out of touch on social issues it makes one wonder if they only recently evolved out of living in caves. So it makes sense that since no one agrees with their "ideas", and we use that term loosely, they have no other choice than to try to present Barack Obama as someone so scary that you'll vote for McCain out of default. Please don't be as dumb as what the Republicans are hoping you'll be.

I'm For World Peace... and Bunnies

(Miss Wasilla 1984, Sarah Palin)

We've resisted following the party line and pointing out how dumb Sarah Palin is, it's just too easy and too predictable. It's more fun to listen to Bill Maher describe her as another "Dan Quayle bimbo". But after listening to her interview with Katie Couric, it has stopped being funny, now it's downright scary.

Bill Maher also loves to mention that as a people, "we're too dumb to vote". That's such a harsh assessment of the American people and not completely true. We were smart enough to see through the Right-Wing witch-hunt of Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal and continue supporting him. But in the case of this year's election, something else is going on. We still don't want to say that as Americans we're dumb, but we're definitely having a moment of temporary insanity.

Case in point: We've just suffered through eight years of the worst presidency on record, even worse than Ronald Reagan's, which is saying a lot, and yet, there are still folks out there who want to vote to put more Republicans in charge, even enthusiastic about it. When are we going to learn that Republicans don't know how to govern? They're great at getting elected, but they have no idea how to govern.

McCain is frightening enough, but Sarah Palin makes us want to f**king run for the bomb shelter. When Katie Couric asked her what newspapers and magazines she read, she fumbled around and finally said, "All of'em". Translation: None of'em. Remember the last time we had a president who didn't like to read? Oh, that's right, he's still in office.

Palin supporters are emailing into the talk shows making comments such as, "She's just like us, and we like that!" Holy shit, people, NO! We don't want someone like us, we want someone a whole lot smarter than us. We can't afford another president who's down at the local bar getting drunk with our stupid-asses, we need a president who's home in his room on a Saturday night, reading books on foreign policy and studying economics. We want a president who went out of town to the science convention while the rest of us stayed home, went to the high school dance and threw up on each others' prom dresses.

This morning, on MSNBC's "Morning Joe", during a discussion of Sarah Palin, Joe asked Chystia Freeland, an economics expert, if she were offered a job as a phyics professor, (something totally out of her field of knowledge), wouldn't she be home studying like crazy to learn physics? Chrystia smiled and said, "No, Joe, I'd probably turn that job down." Bingo. Now if only Sarah Palin had had the wisdom of Miss Freeland.

Cindy's Jungle Fever

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Cindy McCain meets her first-ever person of color.
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Immediately after this pic was snapped, Cindy whispered to her Junior League liaison, "I think I might have just hugged a terrorist."

Morning in America? More like Morning in my Shorts...

I watch MSNBC's "Morning Joe" most mornings, I get a little bit of political information and a whole lotta' laughs. To say Joe Scarborough is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier is a whopping understatement. He still thinks Ronald Reagan was a great president. Hilarious.

And poor Mika. Everytime she opens her mouth, Joe beats her down and benevolently endows her with his own opinion, the correct one. Have you noticed how much more enjoyable the show is when Joe is absent and Mika is at the reins?

But the shocker this morning came from Mika's lips. She mentioned that she was at an event this weekend and everyone she talked to was still undecided about who to vote for, Obama or McCain. Are you kidding me? Mika, were you at a nursing home for Alzheimer patients, before they took their morning meds?

Seriously, who at this point is "undecided"? It's not rocket science, folks. What are you waiting for, one of the candidates to part the Red Sea?

Come on, people, it's not even really about the candidates, it never is, it's about the political parties. And who out there, by now, doesn't understand the difference between Republicans and Democrats? The Democrats are the modern-day version of historical "Progressives", who have always taken the lead on every great social change in the history of our country, from the Revolution, to the abolition of slavery, to civil rights and social programs like Social Security which have benefitted untold millions of Americans. The Republicans, on the other hand, or their political equivilants of the day, "Conservatives", fought against every single one of those social changes. In today's world, the Democrats and Republicans will both raise your taxes, but the Democrats are honest about it. The Republicans don't like minorities, gay people, poor people and barely tolerate women. The Democrats really, really like these folks... really! The Republicans believe in persecuting a president for wanton sexual behaviors but then turn out to be guilty of the same offenses, the Republicans believe that abortion is an abomination, until one of their daughters turns up pregnant, and the Republicans still believe that being gay is a choice. Is the picture becoming clearer? About the only thing that might possibly sway a rational minded person to vote Republican would be the idea that Republicans are fiscally prudent and believe in spending less government money and... oh, wait a minute, Pres. Bush just drove the budget deficit to record levels. Scratch that last thought.

The saddest part of this equation is that the folks out there who are the most fervent Republicans are often the very people that the Republican party hates the most, middle and lower class white Southerners. To all my fellow white Southerners, do you really believe the Republicans like you? Really. Other than protecting you from the scary black folks, gay people, gun-haters and abortionists, what was the last piece of legislation passed by a Republican Congress that really benefitted you? Trust me, they don't like you. They laugh about you when you leave the room.

But aside from all the actual history of the political parties, if you only care about this year's election, who in their right mind would put the same party back in the White House which is responsible for the Iraq War, ignoring the warning signs for 9/11, Katrina, our current economic crisis, record deficit levels, the U.S. Attorney scandal/raping of the Justice Department, the outting of Valerie Plame, denying global warming, Abu Ghraib/the lowering of our esteem in the world, Terri Schiavo, gutting the C.I.A, abuse of our armed forces, the Walter Reed veterans in filth scandal, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, stop! enough! I can't take anymore. Whatever happened to the good, old-fashioned, American ethic that the incompetent are fired, not re-hired?

And to those of you who say, "But Mr. East Village, McCain is not George Bush, he's different, he's... he's... he's a maverick!" Okay, I just threw up a little in my mouth. If you really think John McCain and his cronies will be any different from George Bush and his incompetent ilk, then, please, by all means, vote Republican this year. I won't offer to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, but I will say you definitely remind me of the "Beverly Hillbillies" episode where Honest John takes the Clampett's to New York City and sells them Central Park.

The Strange Lives of John McCain

(Obama tries to show no fear as the crazy attack dog nears)

Strange, Isn't It?

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Isn't it funny that after almost two years of non-stop campaigning, and all the endless hours of blathering, the achilles heel of John McCain's campaign will be the very thing that was first identified as his potential weakness many months ago?

Remember the early jokes about McCain being the "grumpy old man" whose temper might do him in? That prediction was quickly forgotten as the campaign began in earnest. But after last night's debate, it became clear that those jokes were mentioned for a reason, because they're true.

In last night's debate, both candidates got their fair share of shots in, neither man really scored the "knock-out" punch, however, almost everyone today was discussing how angry and contemptious McCain looked. He came across like one, seriously pissed-off old man. And the fact that he could never look Obama in the eye was just... weird!

One wonders from where this bitterness originates in McCain's personality. Is it a stereotypical scenario in which the older generation resents the younger? Can it be that McCain is feeling the heat because the political party to which he has devoted his entire career turns out to be one completely bankrupt in its philosophy and has created some of the worst foreign and domestic disasters in the history of our nation?

I've never thought McCain would defeat Obama for the presidency, but at least now, when the t.v. pundits are debating where McCain's campaign took its fatal step, all they have to do is pull up a tape of last night's debate. It will go down in history as the 1960 Kennedy/Nixon debate all over again.