Presidential Qaqaa

      Is it possible, at long last, that this drudgerous, exasperating, manifestly manipulative election campaign in the United States might finally be petering to an ending? I shouldn't tease myself with the possibility, because I think we all know, short of some mysterious tsunami of heretofore unstated support arriving to drive one candidate to a watery fate, there aren't going to be any graceful concession speeches anytime soon and we'll all be retreading that oft-quoted (and misquoted) nugget from Shakespeare about killing all the lawyers. But some of us can cling to some morsel of hope that this idiot's carnival that has consumed so much attention in this increadingly ADD society will soon find an ending. This blog's only reason for hope? John Zogby's recent guest appearance on The Daily Show. Asked by Jon Stewart who was going to win the election, Zogby, he of more polls than Warsaw, answered quickly and with a certainty normally restricted to more partisan circles, "Kerry." I'm not sure how Zogby can be so confident (he anticipates the undecideds will break for Kerry on election day), though reading polls can have the same dizzying effect as a Rimsky-Korsakov piece, and, worse, the retarding effect of overproof moonshine. The headaches are only just beginning, and the hangover is going to be a right bitch, so much so that today's NYTimes notes a bizarre possibility that the real winner in this election may finally be neither Mr Bush nor Mr Kerry but (wait for it) John Edwards. There are two things one has to take from this: that now more than ever that the largely-unpolled youth vote may make the difference in this election, and, more importantly, that American politics has now become such a farce that, were only there more bed-hopping, Feydeau would have been brought to the floor in fits of laughter. This blog's now praying for the tsunami-- and, frankly, attending to more important matters that offer a more blithe suggestion of what Roveing means, or, frankly, what it ought to mean.

      Back to the Qaqaa-mamie bullpoopery of the Bushies, it seems the Pentagon's attempt to suggest that the explosives that disappeared from Al Qaqaa has been appropriately nailed as a misdirection worthy of Penn and Teller. How? By a Minneapolis reporter that was embedded with American troops providing footage from after the invasion of Baghdad that proves the explosives, or some of them at least, were still there. CNN's Aaron Brown, talking with former US weapons inspector David Kay, was uncharacteristically blunt about the matter, saying that this footage was "game, set and match." The NYT's coverage is here.   Bush and his team, as the spoonerism suggests, truly are a bunch of shining wits (to say nothing of their cunning array of stunts). See also, by the way, Frank Rich's indictment of the Bushies in this article, and the New Yorker's devastating review of the Bush administration's cavalcade of lunacy. You really have to wonder how so many people can be so utterly oblivious to the preponderence of facts that demonstrate, with no shortage of defensibility, the ineptitude of this crew. Odd, isn't it, that those, like the folks at Slate, that follow news closely are so overwhelmingly opposed to The Dubya, who with each passing day makes Jerry Falwell sound like a voice of reason. Regardless, you have to love this victory for the President: maybe some us have misunderestimerated him.

      Oh, enough of all this: we all know that if you're going to talk about flipping and flopping, there are so many more serious concerns for this. (No, I won't make any Bush references at all.) But this blog is reminded of the words of Colin Mochrie, playing Props on Whose Line Is It Anyway, after Wayne Brady passed himself through this circular object crying like a baby. He stood there in checked disapproval and said, "That's the flimsiest vagina I've ever seen." Perhaps; or maybe it's just another cunning stunt. Flippy-floppy. Oh dear.... That's the grossest example of onamotopoeia I've ever heard. Cheers.

      (And I hesitate to observe it, but doesn't the woman in the site banner there look more than a bit like Christie, or like she did when her hair was dark? Er.... Um.... I am SO dead. But, sorry kiddo, she does, she really, really does. )