Your turn.

Given all the Pent-Up Anger... thought I should say: If you're going to post something particularly edgy, or something personal about a commentator or the like, please run it by me first before posting. Anything that's less newsy than personal or that breaks past a PG-13 rating should be run by me first for appropriateness.

One sort of post that should be run by me is the "chum" type post, where a post invites commenters to go after someone. That's why I deleted JackM's post last night. That kind of post just encourages people to just trying to keep topping each other, and can get out of hand and wind up looking really bad and hurting the site.

I mean, I don't want to embarrass the McCain/Palin ticket here. This site is already on the handle-at-arm's-length-if-at-all list. I don't want to get on to the don't-handle-at-all list.

Now you may say, "Hey, Ace, you go R-rated or viciously personal all the time, especially lately. Why are different rules for us?"

The answer is simple: Shut up, that's why.

No, the answer is that I'm a hypocrite.

Or really, it's because 1) I want to be in control as to how far this site pushes things, and not just leave it to chance as to whether someone goes to far and I wind up without a job or advertisers, and 2) I'm a hypocrite.

So run it by me.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (45)
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The Anchoress has come roaring out of her online retreat with wall-to-wall political coverage. I think the Palin pick in particular re-energized her. Now she's talking about the Daily Kos Media's attempts to sway this election:

This might seem like small potatoes, but it comes down - again - to the press reporting one way for one candidate ("a crowd of 75,000" comes out for Obama, but no mention of the free concert that went with his appearance) and another way (“more than 1000″ people come out for McCain in Cedarberg, WI - but people who were there say more like 12,000) for another.

It is true that 12,000 is "more than 1,000."

One paper reported the crowd to be "hundreds." But you canÂ’t find that page, anymore.

At some point, media bias becomes so pervasive that it ends up helping Republicans. People are more likely to take the time to refute obvious or outrageous truths than they are the typical, low-level bias we have come to expect from the media. First of all, because it's easier. But also because it becomes more important to do. So word-of-mouth and alternative media get a boost.

That's certainly been my experience this past week and the experience we've had here at the HQ recently. There are a lot of people out there looking for accurate information about the presidential campaigns. And I'm not just hearing the usual recycled nightly news digest from friends or at parties. I'm hearing the things that aren't being reported in the legacy media.

For example, I was floored yesterday at a lunch when somebody countered the WaPo's lie that Palin slashed funding for teen pregnancy centers. To my knowledge, the WaPo hasn't retracted or corrected that story, but this person knew the truth anyway and confidently straightened out some other folks at the table.

I suppose I shouldn't let it surprise me given the boost in our own stats and for readership in the blogosphere in general, but I'm always happy to find out that people are learning to inform themselves.

More: Wait, who really cares about how many people show up for these things? Well, actually, we all care. The "mine is bigger than yours" impulse is pretty basic. More than that, it all becomes part of the narrative.

Obama was happy to be portrayed at center stage, the matinee idol. The media was pleased to share just how popular he is. Until, the McCain campaign turned that on its head with the Celebrity ad.

On the flip side, they'd like to show that McCain is old, tired, and disliked. One way of doing that is showing that he can't draw a crowd. That had some truth a few weeks ago. Now you and I know that just isn't true post-Palin. But it's probably going to take a few days for the revised DKM stylebook to be printed and passed around.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:54 AM | Comments (44)
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For Democrats the flag seems to be just another disposable prop.

Don't worry, this won't be one of those things only rightwing nut jobs know about. Drudge has it and has crashed the Denver Post site. And oh yeah. McCain/Palin are in Colorado today.

Before McCain speaks today, veterans will haul these garbage bags filled with flags out onto the stage — with dramatic effect, no doubt — and tell the story.

The Democrats spent a lot of time worrying about how environmentally friendly and healthy their convention would be but I guess that only goes so far. Now they'll whine about how it wasn't their fault and it's not like Obama was personally tossing flags in the trash and in some sense that's true. But appearances matter and this just feeds into the perception that patriotism as most Americans understand it (something other than endless criticism of the country) is simply a card Democrats play at election time.

I wonder why anyone would get that idea?

Bill "Friend of Barack" Ayers

UPDATE: The convention committee more or less says the flags were taken before they could be dealt with.

Damon Jones, spokesman for the Democratic National Convention Committee, released a statement saying McCain should applaud the fact that thousands of American flags were “proudly waved” at their convention.

“But instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play out a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism,” he said.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:39 AM | Comments (204)
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Why hasn't Howard Gutman been reprimanded or canned for breaking Obama's pledge against attacking Palin's family?

Cuffy says follow the money.

Huh. And there's yet another domestic terrorist connection leading back to Obama's old friend Ayers.

Small world.

Posted by: LauraW at 07:47 AM | Comments (34)
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Rock. Solid. Support.

...Some of her aides note with a hint of resentment that Mr. Obama did not pick her as his running mate; he did not even vet her fully. Plus, they add, her fall calendar also includes campaigning for Senate Democratic candidates, not just for Mr. Obama...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 05:31 AM | Comments (72)
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Download here. It just went over the radio.

Script below. more...

Posted by: Ace at 03:46 AM | Comments (51)
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...and of course is neither fired nor even reprimanded.

Either Obama is a liar, and is telling his surrogates to put this crap out there while he sings pretty songs about a new politics, or his leadership is for shit.

If even his highest, most loyal surrogates don't listen to a goddamn thing he says -- who exactly is going to?

Posted by: Ace at 03:34 AM | Comments (38)
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Yeahp.

What a sharp mind this tiny little strutting bantam of a Napoleon has. Why, I just want to grab him around his petite little waist and lift him up off his cute little elevator boots!

Rantburg catches him telling the dummies (that would be you) to stop calling Obama -- and people of Obama's intelligence level, like Bill Maher, it seems -- "elitist," because the thing is, they really are elite and you should accept them as your betters and Just get over it.

I forwarded this to a comic friend of mine in Hollywood:

Follow the link to Bill Maher's scary-funny post at salon.

Maher: "One of McCain's ads casts Obama as "the one," implying he thinks he's the Messiah. Good, maybe he can raise McCain from the dead."

New Rule: Comics should occasionally be funny.

Honestly, man, if you were writing anything, even an email, and your brain stumbled on to this, um, joke, and you couldn't think of anything else, would you write it, or would you just decide that sometimes being funny means avoiding being not funny and just write a non-joke?

Obviously, the answer is the second one.

Not only is it a lame joke, but it's even lame as to the type of joke; it's that seltzer-down-your pants ba-dum-dum kind of joke that's big on bad sitcoms. I'm falling asleep; does anyone know what I mean? There's a cheap and trite premise-"payoff" ahem thing to it, barump-dump.

This guy couldn't get a gig in a little casino bar in Vegas, and yet he's on HBO.

Hmm... let me do a joke almost as lame and dated as Bill's: Hey, Bill, Prince just called. He wants his stage-heels back.

Oooh, burn.

He should be the most America-lovin' patriot there is. No other country embraces horrid crap like America. (Hey, we do-- you want to argue? Bill Maher has a TV show; QED.)

What annoys me most about this sort of defense of "elitism" is that it's always offered by those who are asserting, fantastically, they are, in fact, elite themselves. But they're not. This springs from inadequacy; anyone who truly feels himself elite hardly has to apprise you of that. He'll let his sheer awesomeness speak for itself.

It's always these shitty little rat-fucks like Bill Maher who do the loudest and most ostentatious shrieking about the elite. Perhaps he's hoping if he says nice things about the elite enough times they'll finally invite him into the club. Even just as a mascot or towel-boy; Bill doesn't mind. He just wants to be part of it.

He's not even elite as a comic. Hell, he's not even good, nevermind elite. Bill Maher is and always was a piece of crap comedian. He never was funny. What he had -- and this was all he had -- was as shitty, sneering attitude that actually (I admit) separated him from thousands other comics, all vying to differentiate themselves and get attention. And I admit that any kind of attitude like that is helpful to a comic or any performer.

But his material and joke-writing have always been third-rate -- often atrocious and amateurish. He never actually had the funny, and he never will.

His one gift? The one thing that got him remembered? He seemed like an absolute prick onstage.

But that wasn't craft, that wasn't a persona he'd developed for his act. He was simply born a cheap, angry, petty little man with an absurdly oversized and unwarranted ego competing, as it often does, with a deep and much more realistic feeling of inadequacy. How absurd an ego? Well, he has never stopped crying over the fact Hollywood had no interest in making him a movie star. Yes-- he thought that someone with his looks, rat-face, and short stature could, and should, be a movie star. Think about that.

So his "talent" was one of pure chance and not of craft: He just was born an asshole, and he's ridden that particular rocket to... well, not success, but at least D-list mediocrity.

But he's goddamned proud of himself for reaching that pinnacle of the D-list elite, isn't he?

Correction: I thought Toobin's "that may be true...." was referring to Maher's very-elite theory of faked pregnancies, changeling babies, governors running around in fat suits for three months, and ongoing fake lactation and breastfeeding through some sort of fake-boob milk-pump device.

Commenters point out he seemed to be agreeing only with the proposition that "Republicans will lie about everything." I see that makes more sense now.

Apologies.

Posted by: Ace at 01:35 AM | Comments (63)
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Don LaFontaine, the "In a world..." guy you've heard hundreds of times, dead at 68.

I used to have a joke with a girl I dated: I would not see any movie set "in a world" nor any movie which "invited" me (as in "Searchlight Pictures invites you...") So, Don LaFontaine kept me away from a lot of lame movies.

Funny video below, as he and four other voice-over guys get together. (From five or so years ago.) more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 AM | Comments (18)
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There clearly is some interest in this question, judging by the emails I'm getting. I know the first commenter to send a note about this was genuinely curious, though he or she expressed an interest in avoiding any chats with Treasury agents. I'm a little disturbed that some of the others sounded a bit like wishful thinking, though I'm sure they mean well. I almost didn't post this because I thought it would be too morbid, but the emails keep coming. For my own peace of mind, could we keep any wishful thinking in the comments to a minimum?

First, there are a few dates that concern us. The day of the general election this year is November 4. The day the electors casts their votes this year is December 15. The day the joint session of Congress counts the electors' votes and declares a winner is always January 6. And Inauguration Day is always January 20.

If either presidential candidate dies before November 4, the party will select a new presidential nominee. That could be (and I believe most likely would be) Sarah Palin for the Republicans or Joe Biden for the Democrats, but there's nothing that says it has to be her or him. The "moron without the good sense to keep his/her mouth shut" who originally asked me about this expressed doubt about both candidates. My correspondent is skeptical that Republicans would put a "trainee" in the top spot and seems to think that Clinton would come surging back on the Democrats' side.

In any case, the most likely way I see this proceeding is by mail through the state parties, but I'm honestly not sure that's how it'd happen. I suspect that the RNC and the DNC have already set out their own rules for it (and if you happen to know, be sure to shoot me an email).

There's also the problem of what to do if either candidate passes, say, the very weekend before November 4. There's no time to nominate another candidate, the ballots will have already been printed, the ballot machines programed, and early voting and absentee voting will have already gone on. Congress could either postpone the election (there's no Constitutional reason it has to occur on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November) or we could proceed with the understanding that the voters are voting for their party's electors rather than a particular candidate. That's the true state of things anyways during presidential elections. Then those electors can vote for whomever their state parties have picked when December 15 comes around.

If one of the candidates dies between November 4 and December 15, same deal. Constitutionally, there is no President-elect or Vice President-elect yet during this period, even though we will act like the winner on the evening of November 4 is the President-elect and their running mate is the VP-elect. The party has until December 15 to settle on a new candidate or candidates. I admit the thought of another intraparty contest (a secondary!) during this period amuses me.

The murkiest period is that between December 15, when the electors vote, and January 6, when Congress counts the votes and declares the winner. The problem is that the Constitution is silent as to just when the winning candidates become the President-elect and the VP-elect. It uses the titles without ever defining them. Do we have a President-elect when the electors vote or is it when Congress certifies the vote and declares the winner? If we assume the former then there is no problem; the Twentieth Amendment controls. In that case, the Vice President-elect shall become President on Inauguration Day.

However, if there is no President-elect or VP-elect until Congress counts the votes and declares the winners on January 6 then I have no idea what happens. The most reasonable thing would be for Congress to consider the person who got the majority of electors' votes to be the President-elect and proceed according to the Twentieth even though that person has died before certification of the winner. The Constitution doesn't actually require that the President-elect be alive, only that if he is incapable of serving on Inauguration Day, the VP-elect will become President.

Another possibility is that on January 6, Congress certifies and declares the winner to be the then-living candidate who received the most electors' votes. In this scenario, if the candidate who received the most electors' votes on December 15 has died, the losing party gets the Presidency! Correction: Simon Oliver Lockwood in the comments corrects me: "A candidate must receive a majority, not a plurality of electoral votes." So in this second scenario, if there is no then-living candidate with a majority, the House of Representatives chooses the President--it could go to either party, not just the losing party. Thanks, Simon!

Of course there would be lawsuits regardless which route is taken.

Finally, the easiest situation occurs if the President-elect dies between January 6 and January 20. We know for sure that there is a President-elect and a VP-elect during that period so the Twentieth Amendment controls. The Vice President-elect shall become President on Inauguration Day.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 10:30 PM | Comments (51)
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