Joe the Plumber, Tax Maverick!

The McCandidate’s Man of the Hour last night was Joe the Plumber, who’s concerned about having to pay more taxes under Obama. Joe wants a tax break. Funny – he’s already given himself one:

`Joe the plumber,” the Toledo, Ohio, man whose complaints about Barack Obama‘s tax plan were highlighted by John McCain in the final presidential debate, owes the state of Ohio almost $1,200 in back income taxes.

According to records on file with the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, the state filed a tax lien against Samuel J. Wurzelbacher for $1,182.98 on Jan. 26, 2007, that is still active.

~ Bloomberg.com

No sense of civic duty, that’s what we see here. Taxes? Sharing for the common good? Ptah. Who needs a society where people work together and look out for each other, when we could have a society of proud individuals, hoarding their Preciouses.

How are the Mighty Fallen

McCain needs a game-changer. Tonight’s debate isn’t it.

He avoids eye contact with Obama; he will not name him beyond a jerk of the head and a reference to “this one.” He glares. He writes notes, stabbing the tablet so that the water in the glass on the shelf under the writing surface shakes. He makes “jokes” and nobody laughs. He reverts to tripe in his talking points, which increasingly reflect the stylistic influence of Sarah Palin (“uh, and also”).

His fans yell “Kill him [Obama]” and his vice-president doesn’t miss a beat. His ads pander to racism (“How disrespectful“). And his big campaign strategy is to turn himself into Hillary Clinton: A democrat for change + experience who has nothing to do with bad ol’ Bush – because that’s a proven strategy for success. At least Hillary is a Democrat; McCain just wants to be one if that’s what it takes to win.

David said it well: How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Johnathan, thou was slain in thine high places.

Full-Flavored Mavericks!

So round, so smooth, so fully packed! So quick and easy on the draw!

And best of all – that milder, smoother tobacco never leaves an aftertaste! They’re good for you!

McCain Feels Sorry for Biden

There’s a headline for you, courtesy FOX News.

A belated moment of compassion, you think, for Biden’s sorrow over the death of his first wife and their daughter? The Grand Old Man showing the spunky youngster that we can be noble in defeat and show compassion for a fellow American?

No.

“You know, I almost felt a little sorry last night for my old friend Joe Biden,” McCain said; “she did a magnificent job and she is the news for the big spending, smooth talking, me first, country second crowd in Washington and Wall Street that we have got a message.”

Did you notice that “almost”? There’s no compassion here, only crowing triumph.

Indeed, Palin did deliver a message: a message of relentless self-centeredness. She had memorized her talking points and she memorized them thoroughly and well; she delivered them spiritedly. But when the man next to her lost control briefly, she had an opportunity to be so much more than a great speaker: she had the opportunity to show a heart, to be her own shining city on a hill, — to express some gentleness, however briefly.

And she didn’t even blink. “Back to me….”

To expect gentleness from a woman candidate is not sexist. Both men and women should have some class. McCain and Palin both showed that, despite the pretty music they can make, when the lip-sync machine is off, they are tone-deaf.

The Mavericks!

FOX News is wet with delight and triumph. After some digging, they’ve found video of Sarah Palin talking coherently about a Supreme Court decision.

So why didn’t Palin talk like this when questioned by Katie Couric? Either Palin just can’t handle pressure, like, at all, or she chose not say anything about the Exxon decision. Why? Almost certainly, Top Maverick and his Team told her not to because they didn’t want Bottom Maverick suggesting that big oil companies should pay big penalties.

McCain is screwing over his own running mate, forbidding her to use the knowledge that she has and helping to make her a laughing-stock for the rest of her life. Mavericky.

Sarah Palin’s Opinion of Sarah Palin

It’s the most important opinion out there, and, while New Feminist can’t exactly claim a scoop, or “gotcha journalism” as the intellectual elites now call it, we can point out that Palin’s body language is a dead giveaway:

Notice Palin. Notice how, when Couric asks her a question, Our Journalism Major looks frightened. Here at NF, our editor teaches college, and that’s just the look she sees on the faces of students asked to explain how their paper got on Wikipedia two years ago.

–Notice how, when Big Daddy jumps in to answer his little girl’s questions for her, Palin looks at him with a big smile. He’s her white knight! And she’s Lady Godiva, because she, like a certain emperor, has no clothes.

Equal Pay and Oversight

McCain’s ads about the supposed wage gap in the Obama campaign are all over the place now.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this is true, instead of the gross misrepresentation it actually is.

Why then does McCain oppose doing anything about it? If he’s so concerned about wage gaps and equal pay, why not, I don’t know, try to stop it? Why didn’t he vote for the Fair Pay Act instead of against it?

But instead McCain has no intention of stopping it. He thinks that a woman who is discriminated against should (somehow) find out about it immediately, and bring suit immediately. Otherwise, tough. The burden is all on the woman to find out private information about other people’s salaries (which she is forbidden to try to do, by other laws); the burden is all on the woman to find the money to bring suit; the burden is all on the woman to get the law moving quickly – because one person can totally get Dredlock & Dredlock in motion.

Why put all this burden on the woman? Well, because punishing businesses for their own mistakes – mistakes? Their own deliberate wrongdoing – is a hurty boo-boo.

This damnable hypocrite actually has the temerity to mouth platitudes about how, in his maverickiness, he wants more regulation and “I can assure you” that wrongdoing will not go unpunished. What a lying coward.

My God, McCain’s Found Excalibur!

Seriously! Why else would he suspend his campaign to help out with the economic crisis without having any sort of PLAN to help out with the economic crisis?

At last, the King has returned; unfortunately, he’s unable to multi-task – economics AND foreign policy? Even for a president and a hero, that’s a bit too much. Fortunately, he will descend upon Washington and cut through all the maundering and red tape with his noble sword.

Too bad it was given him by a watery tart.

Oh, National Review, you’re cute

National Review‘s courageous Byron York has stepped in today to set the record straight on Obama, sex-ed, and McCain’s Obama sex-ed ad.

York’s argument is basically this: sure, the bill in question does does provide for teaching children that there is a such a thing as inappropriate touching. But “the bill’s intention was to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually-transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children before the sixth grade.” Ergo, Obama really wants to teach children how to avoid the consequences of sluttery.

Touchingly, York doesn’t bother to quote much from the bill (although, to be fair, he does link to it, and right away, too), relying more on little interviews in which he attempts to uncover Obama’s mindset at the time he voted for the bill. York does favor us with a few excerpts here and there, which serve to (of course!) bolster his interpretation.

Somewhere in the morass, you notice, McCain’s intentions have been conveniently forgotten.

The “logic” of the article is this: McCain’s intentions have been attacked as “shameful” and dishonorable race-baiting. But actually Obama’s motives may not have been conservative, er, pure – ergo, McCain’s motives must have been pure!

If you’re not registering a double-take, or if you’re done with that already, you might want to check out the actual bill in its entirety – you’ll notice two important things: it is about K through 12 (without breaking down what is to be taught in each grade), and ensures that parents get to look at the curricula and materials planned for their kid’s grade as well as empowering any parent to opt out.

Mrs. Palin Goes to Washington

New Feminist is officially tired of the debate over whether the salt of the earth belongs in Washington. One side says, Yes! This is what our Founding Fathers wanted. The other side says No! Look what happens when you have inexperienced people in office – we get Bush!

Everyone talks as if ordinary citizens were either all good or all bad, all capable of turning up their sleeves and governin’ or barely able to sound out the latest news on Paris Hilton. Everyone talks as if Sarah Palin, Example of the Moment, were either almost totally qualified by being Of the People (something of an assumption, by the way, but let it pass) or almost totally disqualified.

The actual fact is that inexperience is neither a qualification nor the opposite. Mr. Smith can go to Washington, and do a great job. It has happened. What we should be arguing over is, Is Mrs. Palin a Mr. Smith? Is John McCain?

Hardly.