Ouch

Former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein told CNN's Fareed Zakaria this week he intends to vote for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday.

Duberstein said he was influenced by another prominent Reagan official - Colin Powell - in his decision.

"Well let's put it this way - I think Colin Powell's decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama."

But don't forget, Sen. McCrankypants has Joe the Plumber, so, you know, it evens out.

Worth the $2 price of admission

Lindsay Lohan and her galpal were spotted on the NYC subway yesterday.

How come I never see her on the 6 train? I usually get the guy with no lower half of his body who rolls by in the little cart looking for money.

Wow

More than 20 percent of American households watched Barack Obama’s 30-minute campaign commercial on Wednesday night, according to preliminary ratings.

The commercial was particularly high-rated in several battleground states. According to Nielsen, 29 percent of households in the Philadelphia media market, 28 percent of households in the West Palm Beach/Ft. Pierce, Fl. media market, and 27.2 percent of households in the Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem, N.C. media market viewed the ad.
- NYT

Once again, Obama triumphs while Sen. McGrumpypants and the haters of the GOP are left sputtering ineffectually on the sidelines whining.

Have you ever seen such a bunch of whiners? Wahh Obama has too much money, wahh the media is unfair, wahh Bush is dragging us down, wahh the liberals are sexist against VP Annie Oakley.

If McCain had done a half hour commercial, it would have got beaten in the ratings by a 12-year-old rerun of Matlock. Especially since Matlock himself (the beloved Andy Griffith) has endorsed Obama.

"Joe the Plumber" gets his ass handed to him...on Fox no less!

Of course, it's by Shep Smith, the only real journalist they have at that "news" organization, but he slaps "Joe the plumber" down quite nicely here.

It's astounding that this guy from "Middle America" has become the voice of the Republican party on taxes and now, apparently, foreign policy.

As Smith says at the very end of the clip - "frightening."

Pinch me

As always, we have to guard against over-confidence or complacency and get out to vote next week - but headlines and items like these are too delicious.


7 days -- One week out -- Republicans expect to be crushed in historic landslide: buy emergency time in Montana and West Virginia

MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS ALREADY FIGHTING OVER WHO’LL RUN FOR RNC CHAIRMAN IN JANUARY

"They say now that Barack Obama is so far ahead in the polls, that the only way he could mess up the election is if he ... got rid of Joe Biden and replaced him with Andy Dick." — David Letterman, CBS's "The Late Show."

In convo with Playbook, a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless “diva” description, calling Sarah Palin “a whack job.”

But best of all, this one:

McCain Support Continues Downward Spiral

Aww

That's a shame.

Slow motion breakdown

Apparently the whole family is insane.

I hate people sometimes

I was returning from some errands today, riding the elevator up to my apartment and not paying that much attention, actually texting someone, when the elevator stopped. I had been the only one in it so naturally I figured it was my floor and got off.

There was a woman waiting there for it, and as I walked past she whispered, "You're on the wrong floor" - but her weird whisper didn't really register until I was halfway down the hallway and realized I was indeed on the wrong floor. I had got off at 17.

Why?

Because this genius had obviously pushed both the up and down buttons. I guess people think they will get an elevator faster that way, but all it does it make an up elevator stop at the damn floor.

So now I had to stand there and wait for another up elevator to come.

She was still waiting for her down elevator, so I snarked - "That's strange, wonder why it stopped."

Dumb ass.

Holy crap

They are seriously having a slow-motion mental breakdown at the Republican party these days. Here's another, um, interesting non-Photoshopped picture from Sen. McGrumpypants' campaign adventures.

If you never saw this....

...it's really good stuff.

Shop, baby, shop

Apparently high-priced luxury hotel suites aren't the only thing Sarah Palin likes to have other people pay for.

In less than two months, the RNC has laid out more money on clothes and makeup for VP Annie Oakley than most Americans make in a year.

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September.

And I guarantee you, the rubes will still coo and gush over this empty-headed phony.

You have to hand it to the Republicans - they sure can bamboozle their followers. They devise policies that screw the average working guy day in and day out on everything from health care issues to work safety rules, from environmental protection to making it harder to sue a company that willfully provides dangerous products that kill and maim. And, of course, they boast a tax policy that gives billions to the filthy rich and corporations.

And yet there are still right-wingers, many of them living in dreary misery in some little shit hole of a town in the south or midwest, who believe - seriously believe, even after 8 years of the Worst. President. Ever. - that somehow the GOP is good for them (hello "Joe the Plumber") and that Democrats are evil. (On taxes alone, Obama has a plan that would cut rates on 95 percent of working Americans, but don't tell Joe that.)

But then again, Joe and his ilk listen to fatass Rush Limbaugh, he of the $20 million a year salary, telling them it's so. And he only has their best interests at heart, right?

Scandalous!

AP INVESTIGATION: Alaska funded Palin kids' travel


So now we find that kooky, mavericky Alaska governor who fought against the "Bridge to Nowhere" - except, er, she really didn't - billed taxpayers to take some of her younguns' with her on fancy trips.

One wonders if Pipi or Algebra (or whoever the preggo one is) got knocked up in a plush hotel room on one of these little jaunts.

Oh wait, according to the AP, one of the little vay-cays included "a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel."

I just hope they changed the sheets at the Waldorf or the Plaza or the St. Regis or wherever those God-fearin' Palin gals stayed (and God forbid they stay at the Milford Plaza, of course.)

A GOP message to the women of America

"As a cold political calculation, I could not be more pleased. She has excited and energized our base. She is a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America."

- John McCain, on Fox News, explaining why he picked Sarah Palin as his VP nominee.

Well, I have to agree with him on at least one point - it clearly was a cold political calculation. (Granted, you rarely hear politicians admitting that sort of stuff out loud, so kudos to him for his honesty.)

But it is startling that he thinks insulting the women of America, many of whom actually believe in silly little things like, oh, I don't know, wanting to decide what to do with their body, will somehow help the Republican party, which is already plummeting in popularity among female voters.

Tally ho

What a great Sunday.

It's an amazingly beautiful, crisp Fall day in NYC.

Sarah Palin basically bombed last night on SNL.

The Obama camp announced they have raised an astounding $150 million in the month of September - the overwhelming majority coming from small donations under 100 bucks.

Gen. Colin Powell, one of the most respected men in America, strongly endorsed Obama on Meet The Press this morning, while criticizing the GOP for the smear-based campaign it has been running. (His anecdote about the young soldier buried at Arlington is very moving.)

And, best of all, I'm going to brunch at my favorite UES restaurant.

Meanwhile, my poor right-wing friends must be crying in their bowls of Sam's Club cereal, which is probably what they are eating given what their president has done to the economy.

Now I'm off for some bloodies and smoked salmon. I am an Eastern big city elitist after all.

Oy (not Photoshopped either)

McCain drinking game for tonight's debate

If you picked "my friends" for the last one, you were pleasantly blottoed by about 9:30ish, as Sen. McCrankypants used it an astounding 24 times.

This week, I'm going with "judgment."

POST DEBATE UPDATE 10:47 pm: Apparently should have went with "Joe the plumber."

Just hearing that word come out of her mouth is deliciously intriguing

See more Hayden Panettiere videos at Funny or Die

Running laps around the competition

How organized and tech-savvy is the Obama campaign compared to that of Sen. McCrankypants?

This screen shot is from an X-Box game - "Burnout Paradise" - in which advertisers can buy space on billboards within the virtual world. Pretty cool.

I hear McCain is going to be buying some time on the Bob Hope Colgate Comedy Hour on the Dumont network.

The Twitter break-up

Here's a fun new addition to the pantheon of sneaky ways guys can break up with women, joining the proud but now archiac tradition of the email, the text message, the voice mail and - "Sex and the City" fans, all together now - The Post-It Note.

CNN anchor Don Lemon's Twitter feed includes this gem:

Carol I'm working.This is strictly professional.Cannot call you or continue to answer personal messages.Please respect that . about 4 hours ago from txt

To be fair to Lemon, this looks more like a stalker case than trying to avoid face contact. Let's hope he doesn't have a kid with a bunny rabbit.

Good for Philly

Although the right-wing bozo who owns the team tried to drown it out with music cranked up over the P.A. system, Flyers fans loudly booed VP Annie Oakley when she came out for a ceremonial puck drop over the weekend.

And she even dragged two of her young'uns, Algebra and Pipi, out with her for cover. It didn't help.

I'm not sure who the geniuses at McCain-Palin were who thought this would go well. Philadelphia fans once notoriously booed Sanata Claus.

Another honest Republican

I pointed, a few days ago, to the words of David Brooks, a conservative commentator for The Times and PBS, as he called Sarah Palin "a fatal cancer to the Republican party."

Brooks' GOP credentials were noted by his early career working for William F. Buckley, founder of The National Review and the guy considered the godfather of the modern conservative movement.

Well, today, another conservative breaks with his party, disgusted with what it has become and the people it has nominated to the ticket this year - and this guy's credentials are even better.

In a fascinating essay, author Christopher Buckley - the SON of William F. - writes that "for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America."

I have some right-wing friends (I know, it surprises me too) who are still clinging to the idea that Palin is somehow qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, that Obama is secretly a Muslim terrorist, that Bush isn't so bad.

The term (coined during the early days of the Iraq debacle to describe the Sadaam loyalists hanging on to power) was "dead-enders."

I hereby proclaim that we now use that term for those GOPers who can't see what Brooks and Buckley clearly do.

This is frightening

Look and recoil at these sad people, my sophisticated Too Saucy readers, because they are the "mob" - and that's the best word that can be used - to describe who shows up at the typical McCain-Palin rally these days.



Let me just say, I've never been more proud to be a big city, Jew-loving, Manhattan elitist, and not part of salt-of-the-earth Midwestern family values God-fearing small-town America.

Ouch

I hope this guy has his resume updated, but here's a courageous essay from a Fox (20th Century Fox) employee expressing embarrassment at what spews out of corporate cousin Fox News on a regular basis.

An honest Republican

Good for David Brooks. He's one of the few conservatives I can stomach reading or seeing on TV. He, of course, writes an op-ed column for the Times, and offers the conservative viewpoint on the end-of-the-week political segment on PBS's "The News Hour." If you doubt his GOP credentials, he admired Reagan and worked for Bill Buckley, for christsakes.

But he is also one of the honest GOP voices who doesn't like where Bush has taken his party - and where McCain/Palin threaten to.

In an interview, he called Sarah Palin, "a fatal cancer to the Republican party," and decried the GOP's increasing tendency to sneer at intellectuals so they can play the populist "hate the Eastern elite" card to middle America.

It's good to see there are still some voices of sanity left in the Grand Old Party.

Wow

I just tested my modem speed at Speakeasy.

19,750 kbps down.

Good stuff.

Yahoooo

If you were playing a debate drinking game Tuesday night, and had "my friends" as your key words, Sen. McCrankypants said that phrase 24 times.

Burp.

Now if Verizon can only do something about drunk texting

Our friends at Google have come up with a way to stop you from drunk emailing.

In Gmail, there's a new setting in the Google Labs tab that lets you activate a function where you have to solve a series of math problems before you can send a mail. You can control what days and times it kicks in, but they have the default set for Friday and Saturday beginning at 10 pm - presumably that's when the majority of unfortunate emails are sent to bosses and exes.

Jeezus

She's another one who can't pronounce nuclear - like the current Genius-in-Chief.

That alone should be a disqualification for office, never mind all her other obvious inadequecies.

God bless my right-wing friends...

...because even though I run circles around their bizarre logic, I have to admit that debating them improves my already rapier-sharp wit.

Case in point: I was having a little phone mano-a-mano with one of my more exuberant conservative buds on Friday (she's the same one who noted in a breathless text exchange Thursday during the VP debate that Sarah Palin is "perky," leading me to point out that, sure, but so is Kelly Ripa - and that doesn't qualify her to be a heartbeat away!) well, then the wackiness began.

This little bird apparently had GOP talking points in hand, because when I noted that McCain/Palin would be a continuation of Bush - and what a joy that has been for the nation - she said, "Oh, looking back at the past again."

Just like VP Annie Oakley said during the debate!

Well, where to begin?

First of all, how is talking about the current president "looking back at the past?" No-one is talking about Herbert Hoover - we are still in the deadly grips of W's disastrous reign.

But to hear a Republican - a Republican! - the party that still has orgasms over the decaying corpse of Ronald Reagan - decry "looking back at the past" - how do you even respond?

Oh, I love this election season, when the GOP spins itself into wackier and more concentric circles.

Here's the problem

"Let's commit ourselves just everyday American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation."
- VP Annie Oakley

Not to be one of those Eastern elitists, but I know a few Joe Six-Packs and these are not the guys you want running the country.

But she's "perky" I was told by a right-wing friend. Yeah, so is Kelly Ripa.

Ka-ching

A six-pack of Hefe Weizen wheat ale at the Key Food for $3.99. I've never heard of the brand before, but for that price, how can you go wrong?