It seems sort of appropriate now that we're headed into the final days of this campaign.

I was brought up in a Progressive household, watched the birth of the Civil Rights movement, the Kennedy Assassination, all the other incidents on television over the years but it took until 1992 until I realized how much hate existed in this country.

I want to preface this incident by saying that in my home, no matter which miscreant won the election, and there were many, they were then 'accepted' albeit grudgingly, as the President, the Senator, or the Mayor.

So it was the day after Clinton was elected to the Presidency, and I happened to have C-SPAN on, back in the more primitive days of cable, and the female caller on Brian Lamb's show said that which I shall never forget.

"I am going to take down my American Flag for the next four years or as long as he is occupying the White House. He is not my President."

For some reason, that statement has stayed with me for all these years, and of course, many worse things have been uttered, but the seditious phraseology from a person who I am sure, would describe themselves as a Patriot, was viscerally repulsive.

So it will be with those on November 5, I am afraid.

over here, Senator. Have the grace and dignity to look at the man whom you are attempting to defeat. You have no longer the eyes of a warrior, they are the wandering eyes of someone who cannot face the truth. Perhaps at one time you could, but now, faced with defeat, you no longer can; you have the false grin of the third-rate flim-flam man. You have lied about my record, you have lied about my past, and most disgracefully and urgently, you have lied to the American People. You have employed the very individuals and techniques which were used to destroy your campaign eight years ago in South Carolina. Those are techniques of evil, of hatred, of intolerance, and yes, of bigotry. In your private moments I know that you are ashamed of yourself as well you should be, and I only hope that the good Lord God forgives you for your violation of His Commandment."

Take a moment and read this:

The campaign did not have to go in this direction, all you had to do was join Barack Obama, not in Town Hall meetings, where you would have been upstaged by your rival's charisma, use of the English language, and youthful appearance, but in renouncing the Politics of Hate which cost you personally the election of 2000. This Campaign could have been run on the issues of the day including the Iraq War, the Economy, and the direction of the Country and its place among the Nations, but no.

No, sir, you had to hire the very same organization which accused you of fathering a 'black child' all those years ago, who provided the country with a candidate and a President who shredded every fiber of the fabric of America. You may well have won this election if you had appealed to middle-of-the-road voters who at one time, inexplicably it turns out, had what they called 'respect' for you and those who craved 'experience'. If you had won, you might have united the country once again and brought the two extremes toward the middle. you had little to lose: the right-wing of your party has always hated you in the worst way, and they will continue to do so. They despise everything about you and of course you know in your heart of hearts that the accusations of your collaboration with the Enemy in Vietnam came from those on the Right, not the Left, the accusations of adultery, philandering, leaving your badly disfigured wife who had awaited your return from North Vietnam (for which Ronnie and Nancy spat on you), and all the other spears thrown at your persona and your campaigns, emanated from your 'friends'. the Left, for some reason, gave you a pass.

Now you are faced with a paradoxical situation: if you lose this General Election you will be remembered as a duplicitous, inconsistent politician, whose life will have been divided into quarters: your callow youth, your P.O.W. years, your "maverick" age, and this, your lying liar time. You will be finished in every sense.

If you win, you are in real difficulty: you will have no Honeymoon, no friends, and most interestingly of all, no answers. Your Presidency will be referred to as the era which was 'almost as terrible' as that of your Predecessor, George W. Bush, the most hated President in American history - yes, the most hated because with Nixon, it was conceded that he was a bright, well-informed man with severe emotional disturbances. You will not be treated so kindly.

You are on the cusp of the greatest decision of your life: whether to go after Senator Obama on a personal basis. If you decide to do so, it may be the most ill-conceived decision of your life which has contained many.

you've given out a few clues over the years on your mediocre interrupt-fest, Hardball. I've heard you quote DUers verbatim without giving proper credit or annotation, but that's neither here nor there...

You were railing on the other night that Obama was, because he was wearing cool sunglasses, acting 'elite' and too cool. Well, you dumb putz, he IS cool - he's hip, he's brilliant, he's funny, he's sharp, he's successful, and maybe, just maybe, he's on the cusp of being elected President of these United States.

You on the other hand, are a mediocre former-speechwriter, former-confidant, former-up-and-coming TeeVee hysteric. That last qualification was eliminated when Keith trumped your 9 of spades with charisma and real on-air talent which consists not only of claiming to have perspective, but that he actually has a sense of humor which you lack utterly. Of courses, you pretend to have one, but your explosive laugh is unsettling and absurdist, but I digress again.

You are thinking of running for Senator in My Commonwealth, the state which you call 'home'. You list the cliches of Pennsylvania: Tastykake, South Philly, Frank Rizzo, Bill Green, Bill Green's father, Bill Green's son, Pat's Steaks, Soft Pretzels, and Rocky Balboa. We're real impressed, let me tell you.

You may stop sticking your finger in the air, and pretending to be objective: you're a tear-down artist of the first order, you're annoying: you ask questions and when the poor guest attempts to answer, you re-phrase the question and talk over him or her. Periodically you assail a McCain or other Republican spokesperson, but you do it to gain the confidence of your left-wing audience, which is diminishing in numbers fairly rapidly. You then do a 180 degree turn and say something stupid, like the sunglass crack. Why don't you mention that McCain called his wife an unspeakable word, or that in your 60 or so years, I bet you've never met anyone who went to 6 schools in order to receive a B.A. as Palin apparently did. Let's have some real 'reportage', huh? You're going to be running as a Democrat I hear, and we shall not forget nor shall we forgive your transgressions here.

Your friend,

PCIntern

We don't appreciate outside political thugs and fascists coming into our city limits and dick-tating what's best for our fair city; we have our own political thugs and fascists to do that already. We are a fascinating town: a city which is really an amalgam of annexed neighborhoods, limited on one side by the Delaware River and thus the New Jersey line, and by the arbitrary lines drawn when the final neighborhoods of Manayunk and Roxborough were assimilated years ago.

We are fiercely provincial and our means of identification of each others' native credentials involve the question, "Where didja go to high school?". Outsiders are now well-tolerated, but like the Old South, you can move here, you can have money, you can participate, but you'll never b e one of us. Your children, if born here, will be, but alas!: you won't. If you call a Tastykake Kandy Kake a Tandy Take, then you're a veteran of our society; if you remember heartbreaking seasons of professional athletic frustrations, you've been here a while; if you remember that the Keir Dullea film David and Lisa was shot here many years before he was in 2001: A Space Odyssey, then you're the real thing, if you're middle-old aged.

So Sarah Palin thinks she can just show up, accompany Ed Snider to an Irish Bar, and all's going to be OK. Not so fast, Abercrombie. We're a city of the Machine, a bit dismantled, but you just don't mess with the Unions here, you don't mess with the South Philadelphians, and you don't mess with the City Council. Embarrassing occurrences take place when you do. A far-right Republican nominee has about as much chance impressing people here as a Dallas Cowboy's fan has of making out of Lincoln Financial Field without being harassed within an inch of his life. Literally.

Another dumb idea, I don't care how much money they raise.


(P.S.: I have it on good authority that the board members and execs of Tastykake get into arguments as to whether the product should be called Kandy Kake (new) or Tandy Take (old)...my favorite were the peanut butter Tandy Takes...and the Lemon Pies! Before they started putting all the additives and preservatives.)

On Election night, 1980, I called my father of blessed memory and asked him, "Dad, what are we gonna do?"

I was a few months out of dental school with loans and facing a fascist Reagan-state, and scared to death of what the future would hold. My father, a man of great practical and historic wisdom replied, "What you're going to do is you're going to get up in the morning, shower, dress, and go to work. You're going to eat your meals, you're going to date your girlfriend, you're going to go down to the Jersey Shore for weekends in the summers. And you're going to wait. You're going to watch and wait for possibly a very long time, and someday, these bastards will get their just desserts. They call for less government...we'll see just how long the system can run on full throttle cronyism before it collapses."

Well, it didn't occur in his lifetime, and I miss having him and my Mom to talk to about all this...as I once mentioned, they sat shiva for 50 years following Adlai's loss in 1952, but this is the fate of the Progressive.

So it is now about time for the chickens to come home to roost. We are watching the death of the insane movement - it is still gasping and choking for air, and idiots like Limbaugh still spew, but soon we may hear the death-rattle in the throat of the beast.

From my lips to God's ear.

a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.

McCain is broke: he's way behind in fund raising, some states have limits on fiscal issues with the campaigns; he's morally broke; he's emotionally broke; and he's politically broke; and according to George Will,he's journalistically broke.

He's busted: He was busted lying over and over again; he was busted bringing a cipher, an empty pants-suit, a Matt Taibbi-described tawdry woman to the ticket; he was busted for calling his wife a c--t in front of five reporters; he was busted in his (admitted) lack of knowledge about things economic, and as it turns out, everything else; he was busted for having relationships outside his marriages; and weirdly, he was busted not for having a relationship 50 years ago with a hot Brazilian babe, but for the fact that 50 years after, she looks exactly as Cindy would if she hadn't had all that plastic surgery; and worst of all, he was self-busted for telling that horrifying joke about Chelsea Clinton, for which her father should have punched him in the mouth.

He's disgusted: He's waited all his life for this and he screwed it up at the end with all kinds of ridiculous decisions including, but not limited to, the selection of the Failing governor of a small (population-wise) state. His self-disgust should include the fact that if he actually were to win this race, then he would have millions of Evangelicals praying every Sunday for some misfortune to befall him in order that his VeeePeee (her pronunciation, not mine) could take over and address the Fourth Reich. He's pissed off at himself and it shows.

His agents can't be trusted: he brought in the Bush folk and they've screwed up big-time. It's an unmitigated disaster. As well as it should be. He deserves nothing less.

Before I begin this, let me just say that I was pilloried on another thread a week or so ago because I made the point that the plurality in Philadelphia needs to be extremely high to counteract the "Reagan Democrat" voters in the rest of the state, excluding Allegheny County, wherein the Obama Campaign must be fighting an uphill battle. For the record, I am NOT saying that Obama won't "win" Philly...do I need to say that again, because LAST TIME I POSTED THIS THOUGHT, NO NUMBER OF RE-POSTS WOULD CONVINCE SOME DU-ERS THAT I WAS NOT SAYING THAT OBAMA WOULD "LOSE" PHILLY???

OK, that being settled (I suppose, you never ever fricking KNOW around here anymore), please allow me to say this:

We are relying upon enormous turnout among African-Americans, Latinos, and students here. I am telling you that there are great numbers of white voters in the city limits who will not pull the lever for a black man for President of The United States. Obama is NOT running for Mayor of Philadelphia, so please don't tell me that they did it once and they'll do it again. Not necessarily...I speak with these people every day, they make up a fair percentage of my practice and many will not vote for him.

So, my point the other day was that when someone suggested that the Inquirer MAY not endorse Obama or may only endorse him in a lukewarm fashion, I said that that was a very bad thing. Now some here might say that newspaper endorsements don't carry much weight...but hear me: we cannot, absolutely CANNOT afford to lose even a few votes here in Philly, because the assumption has to be that the vast bulk of the state will not vote for Obama. We need a gi-normous plurality here to make up for that.

Now, maybe I'm wrong: maybe Barack will take it in a landslide and I'll be deliriously happy. Until then, I'm working for every single vote here in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area. It is NOT all right for the Northeast Philly neighborhood to be written off in toto, we need the voters up there to not go along to get along with their neighbors who had voted Dem in every major election up until now. IMO, any Dem who votes for McCain at this juncture in history is an outcast and pariah, and I dismiss their logic with a wave of my hand and work for those who are less, shall we say, racist.

It has often been stated that John Sydney McCain is the only member of Congress since the death of Daniel Patrick Moynihan who could capably serve in the British house of Lords. His knowledge of world history and politics is second to none, and I expect to be quite mesmerized at his content and delivery. Did you know that McCain is fluent in thirty-five languages and associated dialects? He is a phenomenal rhetoritician and debater and reminds many of a combination of Lincoln, Churchill, Lord Chesterfield, and Barnaby Jones.


On edit: of course, but you never know...

That's really all Palin's got...she 'governs' a huge state, one which is so gi-normous that it doesn't even represent well in maps due to the projections of the globe in the Arctic area. It is a vast wasteland with all manner of wildlife and frozen tundra, but nary a person per square hectare. It resembles the asteroid base in the movie Outland with various and sundry rough, tough, and criminal-types but it's a profitable regime.

She aggressively pursued the Governorship and was successful and would have had a remarkable existence...quiet payoffs for deals, her husband acting as intercessor, low heat on the burner...everyone makes money...nobody cares.

But she threw it all away for a roll of the dice at the big table. And she may have crapped out. There will be constant surveillance of her actions forever. There will be Federal prosecutors someday who will be able to make a career out of bringing down the hot-shots in Anchorage and make a name for themselves in that fashion. The spotlights are now on the minutest of details and I seriously doubt whether she or her family or cronies or cronies who are family, will be able to withstand the scrutiny. My guess is that all the enemies she's made over the years by stabbing her buddies in the back will give people like Issikoff, who's bucking for a Pulitzer himself, plenty of information about her. The National Enquirer may discover something which makes all the rest of these things pale by comparison, and there aren't any folks to send any more anthrax to dissuade them.

Just one man's opinion, of course.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice....I won't get fooled again"

A "great man" said that somewhere down in Texas or Tennessee or somewhere once, and although my guess is that a lot of my brethren who were publicly castigated for "accidentally" casting ballots for Pat "The Onanist Nazi" Buchanan in 2000 are on the warpath now, since attempts have been made by the RW (Read: Karl Rove- McCain Campaign) to push-poll them into 'thinking' that Obama's either a Muslim or funding the PLO. These RW guys have no freaking idea how fast some story or rumor runs around a synagogue or a housing development/apartment building and this cat's out of the bag. I have some relatives in Hallendale who weren't sure who they were voting for: now they are. My older cousin used the phrase "Goebbels would be proud of these Storm-Trooper tactics. who do these guys think they are, The SS?"

Game, set, match Obama on this one. My RW dentist buddy in Tampa's off the McCain bandwagon, and grudgingly on Obama's.

Every weekday at 6 A.M. starts the morning circle-jerk with Joey "Seven knots in the handkerchief" Scarborough, his "niece" Mika the back-seat-of-the-car-protester (Don't do that! Stop! That's not nice!) and the Nazi-cum-fluffer/Predator- Pat Buchanan. It is non-stop excoriating of the Democrats (read: communists) and rather transparently at that. when this group is exhausted from their orgy of liberal-bashing, they light up their smokes and puff away. I can only imagine the set following the broadcast: Was that as good for you as it was for me?

In case the MSNBC morning starts to become old, you can turn to CNN and Kiran Chetry, who has a great shape, but no mind to speak of, and that paleo-lizard John Roberts, who, when he was with CBS, I actually used to like. They're a great looking couple and are right at home destroying the myth of the 'liberal media'. Kiran and her legs used to star at FOX, but her I.Q. was probably too close to 3 digits to give he job security, so they kindly let her go and now she's a fixture at CNN. They give you the one-two punch you need to get out of bed in the morning, since the snide repartee of Roberts towards any Democrat can send you rushing for the emesis bowl faster than you can say "I'm John McCain and I approved this message". He's good-looking in that aged porno star way - sort of like the guy on Skinemax whose car breaks down and he has to stay in the out-of-the-way house for a weekend with the lonely lady who has been sex-starved since her husband mysteriously died of a heart attack one night after 'lovemaking'. Kiran, for her part, smiles when she sticks the shiv in, and you can always count on her for that extra I'm-on-top special.

FOX of course, is all XXX political porno all the time.

MY anecdotal poll of people who possess three digit I.Q.'s has shown that many are extremely concerned about the Palin 'nomination' for President. Yes, I mean: for President. Many folks to whom I am speaking daily feel that McCain is a short ride away from oblivion, and that if elected, has a very low chance of remaining President for any length of time. At this time it must be recalled that President Harrison died after 32 days in office, of pneumonia, which he allegedly developed following his inaugural address which was edited by none other than Daniel Webster.

There are many who feel that Palin will be sitting in the Oval Office in no time. No matter how it occurs, God's will may be done and there we shall be. She will be a series of hyphens: We will have a self-described hockey-mom who is a failed-governor of a small-state... familiar? Recall the Republicans' indictment of one Bill Clinton in 1992 for exactly this reason. She is a second-rate beauty pageant runner-up who was a horrendous sportscaster and also-ran communicator. Speaking of which, she attended at least 5 schools and finally graduated it is claimed, with a degree in Communications from the Harvard-of-the-West, University of Idaho. Whereas it has yet to be determined as to why she attended so many schools, we shall assume for the sake of argument that none of the first four schools passed her rigorous academic standards, and so she left in order to find her Holy Grail: a B.A. Degree.

So for all of you who lamented that George W. Bush was the most incurious, anti-intellectual, uninformed, and sociopathic person ever to occupy the White House, FEAR NOT! You are about to be proven wrong if the Republicans Prevail.

NOW GET TO WORK AND WORK FOR THE TICKET FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM!!!

Let's cut to the chase: Sarah Palin is a combination of the Nicole Kidman character in the film "To Die For", and the sister-in-law from your worst nightmare. This is the problem: there is so much wrong with her that we just don't know where to start. The details have been spun out in hundreds of threads here and having read most, participated in some, and initiated a few, there is no reason to summarize them.

Few of us are faced with sociopaths and liars of the first order: in many cases, we simply remove ourselves from their company. If she is elected, we will not be so fortunate. There is no scenario off the table as far as these people are concerned, there is no deed which could not be executed. We know from the last eight years which included two stolen elections, a war which was utterly and completely unnecessary, and the distinct possibility that a horrendous attack against the United States was at the very least allowed to occur when significant forewarnings had been given to those responsible, that anything is a possibility. Anything at all.

I was remarking to someone today that discussions just like we're having took place in coffee houses, pubs, houses of worship, grocery stores, and everywhere else in Germany in the 1930's. Those who fail to see the eerie shadows of an enemy movement which we battled nearly to the death are simply in denial. We are strangely unable to confront the dissemblers and their propaganda: that we seem to have lost the will to be Americans and rather, wish that we were part of the "Global Entity" which smacks of false security and Orwellian Newspeak.

This is the true crossroad to which we have come since the day in 1980 when Reagan was elected. Watching the evolution of Reagan and his minions such as Ed Meese, and listening to revisionists such as Pat Buchanan who is attempting to begin the rewriting of the history of World War II and the Holocaust, as well as that of the Nixon Administration and all the crimes perpetrated against the American People, I am saddened and vaguely depressed - these people have patience: it may take 400 years but they will manage to chip away at the truth, such as it has been related, and like Genghis Khan, a new vision will emerge: that of the 'starved' Germany who only resorted to genocide because the 'misguided' leadership of the Allied powers, and that we were to blame for this conflagration. That is the reason why Pat, as he is called by friend and foe alike, is on five days a week from dawn to dusk. He is the chief propagandist for the Revolution - when he talked about the pitchforks, he was sowing the seeds of destruction of the Union, of intellectualism, of foreign-born peoples, of Jews, of African-Americans, and probably of Gypsies as well.

This is a truly frightening time for America and the World. I just hope and pray that we have the collective will and strength to culturally, politically, and intellectually survive.

If you're from the MSM and happen to be trolling around here looking for a hook, or to grow a pair, let me tell you a little story.

Many years ago when I was teaching in a Dental School, one of the Associate Dean's sons entered the Freshman class and began his long, steady progress towards his degree. I had heard that he was a tough-guy, both physically and verbally, and that many faculty members were nervous that if they over-criticized his work, that his father would take revenge upon them either within the institution (reassignment to less-desirable clinics) or professionally (shunning and quiet denigration of professionalism).

Well, as luck would have it, I was the group leader to which he was assigned for a summer session and he started right in on me. The first thing he did was to call me by my first name. My response was, "I like first names, I believe in being on a first-name basis with students, and just so you know, my first name is "Doctor"." He grumbled a little, but took it to heart and never did that again. However...

About two weeks into the session, and it was hot hot hot in the clinic, I saw him walking around with his shirt unbuttoned down to his navel. Now in the summers, we did not require ties, but this was a bit much, so I gently said to him, "You want to button your shirt, say 3 or 4 more buttons up?" He gave me the look, and I thin said to him, quietly, "Now or leave clinic...either choice is satisfactory for me" So he gave me a long look and buttoned.

Strike Three: the hours were from 9 AM to Noon and then 1 hour off. Toward the end of the session, it was about 12:05 and saw this guy working with a patient. I walked over to him and said, "Time to close up now, there are no instructors on the floor." He replied, "Listen, pal, I'm working on this patient."

I said, "That's Doctor Pal to you, and you're relieved of command right now." I went straight to the Dean's Office and explained everything to both Deans, his father, and the School Dean. they both went upstairs and he was out of clinic for a week, and told to write a letter of apology to me and to verbally apologize.

Point is, if you don't stand up to these bastards, they'll try to run away with the election and they may well be able to steal it, all the while we're playing word-games with them and expressing incredulity. Get to work and find out what is going on here and report it. Quickly...there's not much time left.