Peter Krupa

There are all sorts of things I could say about this Palin business. Mostly my jaw has just been flapping up and down in silent shock. I had no idea it was possible, in a matter of 24 hours, to simultaneously establish Barak Obama as a seasoned veteran and drive away all experience-minded independents leaning McCain. Great job, Republicans!

The real loser in all this, however, is Levi Johnston. Poor Levi Johnston is the unluckiest horny teenager in the world. First, he knocks up the governor’s daughter. Stupid, but probably not all that difficult in a state of 600,000 people. But then, the unthinkable (for everyone!): the Republicans nominate that governor for the vice presidency of the United States of America!

Suddenly, it becomes a matter of national security that he marry the girl. If he doesn’t man up, Obama will win the presidency and the terrorists will attack Juneau!

The term “shotgun wedding” evokes the rich imagery of a gun-toting father forcing the guilty young stud to make his pregnant daughter an honest woman, but I shudder to think what the Republican Party is holding to Levi’s head.

Rick Warren to Barack Obama: “Does evil exist? And what do we do about it?”

TORTURE IT! According to the last Batman movie anyway. It might know where that ticking bomb is! Oh, and one other thing, why is a fat, goateed mega-church pastor asking presidential candidates about their relationship with Christ?

If Americans put up with this, they are totally capable of electing McCain.

That’s right folks. Hamdan: War criminal. Basically, the crime was “material support” of someone else who committed war crimes.

… although the terminology “material support” may not have existed historically, the laws of war have long prohibited stealthy attacks on civilians, the mainstay of terrorism groups and the target of material-support charges.

Totally. And representatives of the U.S. government have never offered material support to any war criminals who committed stealthy attacks on civilians. We don’t do that sort of thing. Unless we need to Protect Your Freedoms, in which case, that information is classified.

Excuse me while I go throw up in the corner.

At the risk of destroying any chance I might have of winning public office in the near future: Can someone please tell me why Americans spend so much time worrying about terrorism? I’m really impressed how often the topic comes up in all sorts of contexts in U.S. discourse, despite the absence of a sustained pattern of terrorist attacks.

The State Department loves to label distasteful governments/groups - Syria, FARC, North Korea - as “terrorist” or “state sponsors of terror” as if that somehow makes them ideological allies. Occasionally I run across chintzy action TV shows and movies where beefcake characters express their desire to go out and kill “terrorists,” as if such a status were self evident.

Meanwhile the Office of Motherland Homeland Security (tagline: Preserving Our Freedoms) spends billions of dollars every year on weird grants designed to defend against evil in terrorism hotspots like Annapolis, Maryland.

“Since 9/11, tourist areas are targeted by terrorists… ” Sgt. Johnson said. “Annapolis is the capital of Maryland. These days, I guess anything can happen anywhere.

Right! Except these days, nothing is happening anywhere! Spooks and State Department bureaucrats will tell us, hey, we’ve foiled tons of plots since 9/11, and you snot-nosed kids don’t even realize what kind of stuff has almost killed you in the last seven years.

But with the U.S. government’s track record, if hordes of terrorist boogymen really had been trying to blow up the Homeland since 9/11, at least one of them would have succeeded. Really, it can’t be that hard. Also, keep in mind that the people “protecting” us are the same ones who’ve been lying to us since the Mexican-American War, so frankly, I’m not buying it.

The truly interesting thing is how Cold War terminology has carried over into the 21st Century. The American imagination has been encouraged to think in terms of anti-Western “-isms.” Today we have simply flipped one “ideological” threat (communist, communism) for another one (terrorist, terrorism). Seriously, next time you hear a commentator or politician talking about the threat of “terrorism,” just insert the c-word. Suddenly, it’s 1962 all over again.

Working class; Reagan Democrats; the Racist Vote. I’m sorry, but who, in the history of the United States, has ever claimed electability because they were ahead in the polls in West Fucking Virginia? Unless, of course, they were running against a black man?

Hillary! Please. Stop.

Timothy Noah has written a great piece on Slate.com explaining that, look, it’s pretty much impossible for Hillary to win the nomination under any circumstances, so why does the media keep pretending she’s in the race?

He counts up the delegates and points out that, first, Obama is all but certain to win both the popular vote and the non-super-delegate count, and second, that it would therefore take a massively unprecedented shift by a couple hundred super-delegates to vote against the popular will. And it’s not bloody likely:

Should they vote their conscience, or should they follow the popular will? We could debate that one all day. The more relevant question is: How do superdelegates choose the nominee? Answer: They tend to follow the popular will. That’s why superdelegates gravitated to Clinton when polls showed she looked like a sure thing, and then to Obama when he started outpolling her. That’s why more than one-third of the superdelegates remain uncommitted now. Believe me, it isn’t because they haven’t been paying attention, and (except for a few head cases) it isn’t because, after 23 Democratic debates, they still don’t know which candidate tickles their fancy. It’s because they’re reluctant to be out of step with the popular will as expressed through all the primaries and caucuses. The longer any given superdelegate waits to make his or her endorsement, the likelier he or she is to choose whoever ends up with a plurality of delegates. Why else wait?

I guess there’s a possibility that Hillary is loitering around just in case Obama mysteriously self-destructs. Seems like an expensive bet.

Meanwhile she keeps proposing things that make her seem either stupid or conniving.  Please pack it up, Hillary. This has gone on long enough.

Does anybody else find it weird that Hillary Clinton is running as the Rudy Guilianni of the Democratic Party? I mean, 3 a.m. phone calls, can’t-stand-the-heat, “totally obliterate” Iran: I thought trying to scare the shit out of the electorate was a Republican gambit.

Plus, the pundit wisdom seems to be that Obama didn’t win Pennsylvania/Ohio/Texas because he doesn’t get the un-educated, white, clinging-to-guns-and-religion vote. Like, darn, the Democrats better nominate someone who can snake the idiot vote from Republicans.

The only thing sillier than that argument is this idea that Hillary Clinton, of all people - Hillary Clinton! - would somehow fare better than Obama in a jaw-clenching contest with John McCain. Except that while McCain was being tortured, Hillary was in Moscow. She’d have to explain that one again. Promise.

I mean, Hillary? More electable? Wait till the right dusts off Vince Foster’s skeleton, and God knows what else. The main curiosity, though, is that one would think that this year, of all years for as long as I can remember, would be a good year to run as a Democrat, on Democrat issues.

Instead, Hillary flashes Osama bid Laden’s face in campaign ads. Focus group must have liked that one.

And the award for cringe-inducing investigative journalism piece of the week goes to the New York Times, for a fascinating piece revealing that the “military analysts” regularly trotted out for public consumption by TV news programs are, on one level or another, Pentagon shills:

Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon’s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

…

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Three thoughts come to mind. First, TV “news” appears to be as trustworthy as I always thought it was. Second, I’m a little annoyed that the Pentagon can use tax dollars to coordinate such expensive and creepy efforts at propaganda. Isn’t that illegal on some level?

And third, I’m really going to miss this sort of thing once the New York Times goes out of business.

Hillary Clinton, from the debate tonight, via the New York Times:

“On a couple of occasions in the last weeks, I just said some things that were not in keeping with what I knew to be the case.”