Joe the Creepy Guy You Wouldn't Want Alone in Your House With Your Clogged Pipes: A Halloween Photo Essay:

Two bald men, fates entwined, one whose fortunes are rising, the other whose dreams are quickly tattering like an American flag that's been hanging off a plumbing repair truck since September 12, 2001.

He is always there now, an ominous hulking presence. Yet some wonder, "Why the fuck is Boo Radley stalking the McCains?"

Joe the Monster, created in a focus group lab, now is a beast whose hunger for the spotlight cannot be sated. "Turn around," we may think we should yell at McCain, "for the love of God, turn around." But, the truth is, it's always way more fun to watch the monster attack.

One can sense in Joe the Pumpkinhead's demeanor the thirst for face time with the cameras and reporters, wondering when he can lift his creator up and toss him over the castle wall.

Indeed, even his master McCain must be filled with consternation at the way the beast has learned well the ways to exploit the Everyman persona that the master has tried so hard to foster himself.

Yes, yes, John McCain, this will be one of the faces you will remember on the deathbed of your campaign. You cannot stop the smugness of Joe's self-righteous smirk. On Election Day, no one can hear you scream.

How to Handle the Next Few Days Before Obama Is Elected:
Have you (and the presumptive "you" is a straight dude this time around) ever had one of those nights where you're with a so-hot-it's-unreal woman and she is just hot for your crank, sneaking ass grabs on the street, whispering the promises of hot fucking in your ear, telling you how goddamn wet she is, to the point where you jump in the car and head back to your place, exchanging 80 mile per hour finger fucking and road head, barely able to get up the stairs without throwing each other down and balling like angry mongooses, getting in the door and hitting the bed, ripping your clothes off and then, before you even know what's going where, your cock's slipped inside her pussy, you're fucking away, fucking like there's no tomorrow, not giving a shit if the sun rises in the morning, moaning, thrusting, and, yet, no, no, neither of you can come, and instead you try a different position, a bunch of different positions, 'cause it feels so good and you don't wanna stop until she's quivering like she needs an exorcist and you've blown a load so hard you think your dick might end up looking like Elmer Fudd's rifle after he's fired it with a carrot stuck in the barrel, so you try her on top, you on top, you behind her, her in front, butterfly legs, legs over the head, the backward handstand with a wheelbarrow twist, the dancing white tiger, and more, and what's awesome is that you're staying hard and she's staying wet, it's just so damn fun, and hours and hours are passing, and you're just so fucking sore, she's swollen, you're both exhausted, but you're in this together, goddamnit, you are not stopping until you come because it's not enough, it's just not the fuck enough to stop and say, "Hey, that was fun, we'll try again another time," no, you both wanna shout out the name of some god or other as you both climax and even though it's seemed like it's never gonna end, you know that you gotta keep fucking because the end's gonna feel so, so good?

You ever had that happen to you?

Yes, it is beyond fucking time for this election to be over. Even if you've voted early, you won't be getting your rocks off until Tuesday night. But as we, at long, long last, reach that delicious point where you know you're just about to orgasm, let's be good lovers and savor our time in the sack.

For instance, yesterday, the Republicans who still believed that they had something with which to damage Barack Obama must have died just a little bit inside when the Democratic candidate ridiculed the whole "He's a socialist" thing. Obama said, in a speech in North Carolina, "By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten." He repeated the line, adding that he's a "redistributionist" because he shared a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, when campaigning with Bill Clinton in Florida last night. It's one of those moments where, as a morose, put-upon Democrat, you sit up and go, "That's the way it's done, motherfuckers" and wonder what would have happened if Al Gore had openly mocked the lies told about him or if John Kerry had said that the Swift Boaters will next say that the shrapnel in his ass didn't hurt that bad.

It's been one of the remarkable things about the incredibly well-run Obama campaign: they don't take shit from anybody. You wanna talk about Bill Ayers? Well, fuckin' fine, let's talk about it. You wanna talk about socialism? Let's get it out there. The attitude from the campaign towards the McCain campaign is "Fuck those guys." So the accomplishment of last night's Barackomercial was that it didn't even need to mention John McCain, like this is all now about Obama's relationship with the nation: "if you'll invite me into your living rooms for 30 minutes, imagine what I can do in four years." At the end of the day, it has helped make John McCain sound, in every interview now, like a whiny little bitch about shit that people have moved on about.

In his interview with Larry King yesterday, which was a little like watching the Cryptkeeper have a conversation with the grandpa from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on some kind of 24-hour zombie station broadcast from Hell, McCain pissed and moaned regarding Obama's fundraising, "[W]hat's disturbing about it is that he signed a piece of paper back when he was a long shot candidate. And he signed it, said I won't -- I will take public financing for the presidential campaign if John McCain will. I mean, it's a living document." It's not that it's an entirely unfair accusation (although there was more wiggle room in the "living document" than McCain is letting on), but, dude, there's only five days left. Tell us something we haven't heard in an endless loop.

Oh, sure, they're trying now with this new professor that Obama went to a reception for. McCain keeps bringing up this super secret video of the party that the Los Angeles Times has that must show Obama blowing Rashid Khalidi while Bill Ayers fucks him in the ass because it's become the latest Holy Grail for those who are determined to prove that Obama really hates America. Check out Sarah Palin talking about Khalidi for a little touch of undiluted hatred.

What Palin says is, more or less, why the whole thing fails: "It seems that there is yet another radical professor from the neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama." That's right - yet another one. The McCain campaign is trying for a radical associate do-over: "Aw, fuck, people stopped giving a shit about Bill Ayers. Let's try a brown one." Nope. That ship's sailed. And, besides, once it was revealed that McCain chaired a group that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Khalidi's work, the whole thing became just farcical.

Let us enjoy these last few days and get out the popcorn to watch the splendid sight of the right flopping around like a trout on a dock. The Rude Pundit has no doubt that we'll all come at last come Tuesday night. Yeah, yeah, anything's possible. While you're fucking that hot woman, the building could collapse or her ex-boyfriend could show up. But barring the extraordinary, oh, good lovers, the rewards of bliss shall be yours.

A Brief Comment on Tonight's Television Program:
If you still thought prior to it that Barack Obama was going to rape your white wife and kill your white children, there's no amount of ad time that would change your mind.

Anti-Gay Marriage Propositions 2, 8, and 102: Tell Us Again Why?:
There's many a fucked up belief on the right that the Rude Pundit can understand. He can get his mind around the idea that someone who thinks that life begins at the moment a little tiny sperm nuzzles up to a big ol' egg would want to stop that zygote from being aborted. He gets that people are just naturally greedy fucks who think that lower taxes will make them rich. He comprehends that there are people who are so damaged by 9/11, whether it actually happened to them or not, that they think blowing up some shit somewhere in the area of the actual terrorists will do some good. You name just about any idiotic, demonstrably wrong tenet of some kind of mainstream conservative ideology, and the Rude Pundit would say, "Well, that's idiotic and demonstrably wrong, but, shit, there's reasons people might subscribe to that." But there's one that, no matter who explains it in ways secular and religious, that has absolutely no basis in any kind of space we might refer to as reality. And that's opposing gay marriage.

With the battle engaged this year in California, Florida, and Arizona, we gotta go one more time around the block on this. It's absolutely fucking incomprehensible. And, you know, with a war we seem to have nearly completely forgotten about going on and the economy going down faster than a lesbian porn star in an all-day labia-licking fest, it's just frivolous and childish.

Out in California, the much-discussed Proposition 8, which would amend the Constitution of the state in order to outlaw gay marriage, is an answer to a court decision that overturned an anti-gay marriage statute voted on by the people of California. In order to prevent such a court decision from even happening, some homophobic Arizonans are attempting to preemptively amend that state's constitution with Proposition 102. The same damn thing is what's behind Proposition 2 in Florida, an effort supported by suspiciously suddenly-getting-married bachelor Governor Charlie "Not the Republican VP Candidate" Crist. The idea is that, by amending the state constitutions, those motherfucking judges you've heard so much about who "interpret" the "laws" can't get their filthy hands, the same hands they masturbate with, all over the precious definition of "marriage."

Now, seriously, and without invoking Jeebus or Allahlicious, can someone fucking explain why all this money and time and effort to prevent gay couples from being able to call their marriages "marriages"? 'Cause the only way you can make a case is if you idealize the fucked-up state of straight marriage and/or simply deny that gay people exist. Even allegedly secular "studies" are just great huge piles of horseshit masked in language that sounds rational but that ultimately undermines itself.

Every reason behind the pro-proposition people is just the sweet abyss of tautology. Check out the ad and the fact sheet for the Arizona one. The ad says, more or less, "We need to do it because we need to do it." In the FAQ asserts, "Prop 102 does not take rights away from anyone. Prop 102 simply defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Everyone has the right to live as they choose, but no one has the right to redefine marriage for all of society. Voting 'yes' on Prop 102 secures the definition of marriage for future generations." You got that? It doesn't take away any rights, except that it doesn't allow gay couples to marry.

You go to the other pro-proposition sites and it's the same repetitive bullshit. Parents don't want their children to learn about gay people. Or, in the case of the Florida gay haters, it's because God made man and woman and you don't wanna make the baby Jesus cry, do you? Do you?

But none of these are actual reasons. Kids learn all the time about shit that their parents would rather they not know. And, in what is presumptively a nation with separation between church and state, who the fuck cares what "God" thinks? Until that fucker runs for office, fuck what God has to say. No, we all understand that under the soft music and gentle voices of the ads that what's simmering there is hate and fear, motherfuckers, hate and fear. It's the only reason that makes any sense at all. So there's the issue: you wanna be someone who's allied with the hate-and-fear mongers? Is that who you are?

There's some things that are just patently logical. You live in a country that guarantees equal rights for all. That seems pretty fuckin' clear, no? And if government has no role in deciding what a "marriage" is, then why all the fuckin' fuss?

The Rude Pundit Live: Election Eve in NYC:
No, it's not a new stage show. But the Rude Pundit will be sitting and talking with Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show, on Monday, November 3 at 8 p.m. at Winstead's joint, Shoot the Messenger. The theatre is at 45 Bleecker Street in New York City.

The evening will begin with Wake Up World, the mock morning news show featuring Winstead that the Rude Pundit and a bunch of others write damn funny stuff for. Then the Rude Pundit, Jane, and Lizz will go at it, with questions from the audience.

Come on down and kick out the anti-Bush/McCain/Palin jams while we still have 'em to kick around. Tickets are cheap and so are the beers.

The Right Wing: Dying Without Dignity:
The actual threat to Barack Obama from Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman, the pair of skinhead dickwads who were "plotting" to kill him and scores of black children, was somewhere between woolly mammoth bite and polio. Just because a couple of meth-addicted closeted homosexuals hop on the internet and sublimate their urge to sodomize each other by lashing out at others does not a realistic assassination plot make. Besides, and the Rude Pundit means this in the queer sense, it's the gayest murder spree he's heard of in a long, long time. They were gonna wear white tuxedos and top hats while gunning for Obama. Are they angry because Obama's black or because he's said he doesn't support gay marriage?

And then there's this detail: "They planned their first house robbery for last Wednesday but ended up leaving without breaking in. Instead they bought ski masks, food and rope to use in their robbery attempts." You got that? They pussied out of a robbery and went shopping together instead. Oh, Mary, please. It's like they're the worst stereotype of gay dudes. Fuckin' prison's gonna be paradise for these two. Remember: shaved heads are great for teabagging. Everyone's a winner.

Watching McCain supporters, especially the Christian right, scramble for something, anything to stick to Obama has become fine, fine bloodsport. For pure bugfuck insanity at its finest, there's the "Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America" from Focus on the Family Action, the political wing of Dr. James "Blown by Palin" Dobson's Focus on the Family (new motto: "Where Is Our God Now?"). In this 16 page ramble on how the United States has essentially been destroyed because Barack Obama became president with a Democratic congress, Dobson's group officially bends its head between its legs and licks its own taint.

What does the future hold? (It should be noted that the following shit is really part of a real document from a real organization.) According to the future Christian: "The Boy Scouts no longer exist as an organization. They chose to disband rather than be forced to obey the Supreme Court decision that they would have to hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys." Let's just let that one sit without comment.

It gets better. The letter writer makes up tons of supposed Supreme Court decisions: "The Supreme Court in 2011 nullified all Federal Communications Commission restrictions on obscene speech or visual content in radio and TV broadcasts, and television programs at all hours of the day now contain explicit portrayals of sexual acts...In addition, law enforcement officials can no longer stop the distribution of child pornography, after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the such distribution violated freedom of speech and interstate commerce laws."

Did the Rude Pundit mention that this goes on for 16 pages? And it's got it all: guns are outlawed, abortion is freely available, universal health care is making euthanasia more common because old people can't get medical attention, and the Bible is banned from the public.

Overseas, "in May, 2010, Al Qaida operatives from Syria and Iran poured into Iraq in a flood and completely overwhelmed the Iraqi security forces. A Taliban-like oppression has now taken over in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands of 'American sympathizers' have been labeled as traitors, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. The number put to death may soon reach into the millions." Russia is resurgent, Israel's been nuked, and punkass President Obama just wants the U.N. to do something.

Seriously, read it all for yourself. It's one of the funniest goddamn things you'll see in weeks, especially for the many items that you'll read and think, "Well, that's not so bad. In fact, I hope that happens," like the prosecution of Bush administration officials for war crimes.

Yes, the right is facing its electoral doom with all the grace, dignity, and intelligence we've come to expect from it. If it was a dying patient, it wouldn't want to be unplugged; that motherfucker would expect its family to blow its savings to keep it on life support. So it goes on, with shouts of "socialist" and "communist" coming from the crowd when John McCain or Sarah Palin mention Obama. How fucking beaten down and deluded do you have to be to listen to and cheer on a guy worth a couple of hundred million tell you that it'd be a shame if he paid more taxes?

Indeed, reading, watching, and listening to this nonsense is like going to a particularly poorly-run day care center where the children sit around in their shit-filled diapers, crying and screaming, where the minimum wagers running the joint threaten any kid who dares to ask for more juice, where the barely articulate toddlers grunt out words they don't understand, and where the four and five year olds plot to beat up that kid who thinks he's smarter than they are. You hear about these places and you think, "Just fuckin' shut the place down. Arrest the people in charge and get those kids some love."

John McCain Wants Us to Forget the Present:
Whenever the Rude Pundit returns to Red State America on one of his sojourns home, he sometimes likes to participate in a little fun he calls "Memoryfucking." Here's how it works: you know all those people you thought about fucking in high school? We're not just talking about the stereotypical prom kings and queens, but also the hot, smart chick that was a study buddy or the ripped athlete that didn't give a shit about any hierarchies. Hell, pretty much we're talking anyone who made your genitals get all a-quiver. Chances are at ten or more years down the road, they've been through some shitty stuff in their lives, had their hearts broken a couple of times, had kids, lost jobs, garroted and buried hobos, the things that make up the real lives of real people, just like you and everyone you know. We're all grown-ups here, right? (And if you're not, pay attention: shit will happen to you.)

So the Rude Pundit'll call up someone that was a friend, chatty classmate, or neighbor, and...well, let's specify: call her "Susan" (and she could be "Martika" or "Johnny" or lots of other names). The Rude Pundit gives Susan a ring. Says he's in town, they haven't been in touch in a number of years, it'd be nice to catch up. And, truly, the Rude Pundit is interested in knowing about Susan's life. He is interested in the contours and shifts of lives, the things that build up on the teenage foundations of our selves. So the Rude Pundit gets together with Susan and, since most people like to talk about themselves more than they like to hear about others, Susan is glad to speak about all the things that have caused her straight path to CEO ascendancy to make sharp turns, her divorce, her son (at home with her mom right now), it's all so very ordinary that there's a kind of delicate poetry to it.

Inevitably, the talk turns to the past, to the remember whens and whos and "did we really take that purple pill" and "hope the trig teacher didn't mind the herpes" and "yes, that experiment did go horribly awry, you can still hear it howl in the bayou," you know, all the usual shit that lives in the ramshackle houses on Memory Lane. If done right, this is a kind of mutual seduction, a way of saying, "You know, we should have fucked back in high school." Which is fine until one of us says out loud, "You know, we should have fucked back in high school." It's a lie, of course, based on the haze of the past. But, still, we go to a motel and, in the best case, we fuck the night away, part with no promises, just a conclusion to the memory. A punctuation mark on a lie.

But sometimes, some repressed feeling surfaces and we start to talk about possible futures. Ahh, Christ, the worse lie is to think that maybe, just maybe, now we can make a go of it. You can't make up for the past. If all you have is lies, well, then it's time to say good-bye.

At end of the long campaign, all John McCain has as a closing argument is memoryfucking. You remember how he was a prisoner of war? Such a tough guy. You remember that John McCain from 2000? Yeah, he was such a maverick, wasn't he? No, really, he's the same guy. Except he never really was. Oh, sure, maybe a little more so than now. But now's what we've got. And the John McCain of now is a power mad little worm of a man, who cozied up to a popular president and then held on for dear life when that popularity nose-dived. Who turned into a worse version of everything that he once claimed he despised. That's why the rats are abandoning his ship.

The closing argument against John McCain is that the past is done. It's time to walk away from it, stop believing in memories, and see what happens when you head to the future.

Weekend Multimedia Fun:
From Shoot the Messenger, a look at the pride of the MN-6th, Michele Bachmann:

Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Down a Handful of Sam's Club Wedding Cake with a Bottle of Cheap Champagne:


That's people praying at the Modesto rally in support of the California anti-gay marriage measure, Proposition 8, to be voted on this election day.


These people are lined up in Salinas. It's part of a bus tour to whip up anti-gay fever in California.

Although, considering that California's income is based on the entertainment industry, the high-tech industry, and, to some extent, wineries, alienating gay people seems a bit like punching yourself in the crotch repeatedly.

Look at those pictures. What the fuck? It's like every inbred Jed and Jane and their low-forehead children had a sign shoved into their fat fists 'cause they wanna show Jesus how much love is in their hate.

More on this next week.

Sarah Palin Graces James Dobson with an Exquisite Hummer:
How it must have surprised Dr. James Dobson, the founder and chair of Focus on the Family (motto: "Thirty Years of Making You Feel Guilty For Masturbating"), when Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin reached over during a radio interview yesterday and unzipped his pants. Oh, sweet mercies, yes, dick-sucking lips are a gift from God, but those lascivious eyes, like the Levite's concubine, just begging for it, that's pure temptation.

The good Doctor found himself awkwardly unable to become fully erect early in the interview. Then Palin started praising Dobson, saying, "Dr. Dobson, you have been just on the forefront of all of this, of all of this good for so many years. And your reward is going to be in Heaven because I know that you take a lot of shots also but please know that on our end, kind of outsiders looking in at what you have accomplished all these years, if it were not for you, so many of us would be missing the boat in terms of hearing the message and understanding what we can do to further the cause of life, and of ethics in our nation, those things that we should be engaged in. We owe so much to you." At that point, Dobson could have pounded nails in a cross with his rigid dick.

Dobson was logical about it: who is not to say that Palin's willing mouth was not a present from Jesus for the years of good works? Who are we to question the ways of God? Palin had already described herself as "hardcore" and explained how "I had to really be on my knees." Sure, she was talking about her extreme pro-life beliefs and the difficult pregnancy of Trig. But the implication was clear. And when the Lord presents one with such a reward, one has no right to turn it away.

Cock lubed with the Alaska governor's saliva, and you can hear this in the interview, Dobson leaned back and stumbled for words. Palin, though, between yanks and sucks, was unstoppable in her praise for Dobson's staying power: "This is a strong platform...You would maybe have assumed that we would have gotten further away from those strong planks. But no, they're there, they're solid."

Dobson couldn't help himself. He had to know how he compared to John McCain, if the war-injured Republican nominee's prick could stand as firm as he had. Palin, ever the politician, simply offered, "John McCain is solidly there" before pushing her hair aside and taking off her glasses in order to bring Dr. Dobson to climax. She sensed Dobson being tentative, his cock muscle slackening ever so slightly. Don't worry, she assured him, "I know John McCain has been in underdog positions...I’m just fine with the position that we are in today."

He felt a brief pain in his scrotum, and he knew it was time. He smacked his hand on the table as he dribbled out a modicum of prune-flavored semen, which, of course, Palin swallowed like a host from the Pope. Dobson offered to at least finger fuck her, with no obligation: "I know that this is an extremely stressful time for you and we’re not asking you to come now."

Palin declined. But they did both say they hoped "God's wisdom" and "God's perfect will" would prevail on election day. And if it doesn't? If satanic, Muslim, godless, socialist, beast-marked, Cain-descended Obama wins? Well, at least God's work had been done during the interview.

In Brief: Other Political Ideologies Barack Obama Must Follow:
Since the McCain/Palin campaign has decided that because Barack Obama wants to tax people making over $250,000 in taxable income (which means a hell of a lot more than $250,000 in take-home pay) at a slightly higher rate than now, they can call it "socialism." Or, well, they can say that others say it's socialism and that, as McCain called the idea of "spread the wealth," Obama follows "one of the basic tenets of socialism." In doing this, McCain's campaign is focusing in on idiots as their base, the people who don't actually understand what socialism is (and being ably enabled by idiots in the conservative media).

So if all one needs to be a socialist is to believe that those with money should pay a bit more in taxes, if the bar is set so low, what other outre' political philosophies must Barack Obama be following?

1. Barack Obama must be an anarcho-syndicalist because he believes in the power of unions.

2. Barack Obama must be a Whig because he believes in the government's role in building infrastructure and education.

3. Barack Obama must be a Gaullist because he believes in regulating banks.

4. Barack Obama must be a neo-Aristotelianist because he was a community organizer.

5. Barack Obama must be a Dadaist because cow.

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Republicans Get Back to Their Roots:
When you've got nothing left, you finally get back to basics. Republicans have tried everything to slow the Obama/Democratic juggernaut this year. And nothing - discussions of tax policy, health care, national security (which has worked so very often), and more - has stuck. So what's left? Time to get old school on some motherfuckers. Time to bring out the arguments that Republicans (and the right wing in general) have used again and again to try to rip this fucking election out of its seemingly inevitable ending. And that means it's time to unleash the ancient demons to divide and conquer or, at the very least, just divide. For instance:

Blackfacing Powell:
We finally know that, now that he's endorsed Barack Obama, Colin Powell is just another nigger to the right wing. Oh, fuck, conservatives couldn't get enough of Powell for so long, loving that he had all those medals and that woolly hair and was black (but not so black as to make others uncomfortable), and that they could even let him in the front door of the White House because they could trot him out to make any despicable cause seem honorable and just. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Powell's finally learning that, at the end of the day, how easy it is to get that coal black smudged on his face so that he's only a brother who, of course, would support a brother because he's a brother. By supporting Obama, he's demonstrating that deep inside his nigger heart was another coon waiting for a chance to bite his generous massa's hand.

It's fuckin' hilarious, innit? To hear how quickly the right has rendered Powell's endorsement as race-based, as the porcine shitbucket that undulates like a human, Rush Limbaugh, couldn't even wait until his show today to attack Powell for that very reason, as Nazi-lovin' Pat Buchanan seconded. And they simply act as if "Well, isn't it obvious?" that he'd do it because of their shared negritude. Powell's learning that no matter how much he's done the bidding of the right, honor and respect is cheap among motherfuckers because, if they'd fuck their mothers, then they would surely fuck you.

So now it's fine to say that the newspapers that endorsed John McCain, and Richard Petty and retired generals and others, only did because McCain's white. Let's have that goddamn discussion.

Why Not Bolsheviks?:
John McCain, in his typically pussy style, has started implying, without directly saying, that Barack Obama's tax policies are "socialism." Look at this little bitch way he's doing it: "You see, he believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism. And a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines."

You see that? John McCain's not saying it's socialism, but Joe the fuckin' plumber is sayin' it. And Joe? That cocksucker is talkin' for all Americans now - he's our fuckin' blue collar spokesdude. McCain went on in his punk ass radio address, "In Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives." Hey, he's just reporting.

In Fayetteville, North Carolina, which may or may not be "real America" or "real North Carolina," because it's got colleges and it's hard to keep track of what's real in this country anymore, a woman at a diner started yelling, "Socialist, socialist, socialist" at Barack Obama. But because Obama's not a little bitch, he went over to the woman, who refused to engage with him because, ultimately, she's a coward and an idiot who wouldn't know real and actual socialism if it bit her on the ass and yelled, "I'm Socialism." And, truly, do we not know what she really wanted to shout?

Why not just say that Obama is Bolshevik? That he's gonna bring Leninism to the United States? Why not say he's a wild-eyed bohemian bent on bombing shit? (Oh, wait, they're already saying that.) Obama's "socialism" is to pay for a tax credit for the middle class by raising taxes on the wealthy, which would actually pay for far more than just the tax cut. For McCain that's "redistribution of wealth." Tell you what: when Obama proposes gutting the carcasses of the rich for food, taking their land, and giving their possessions to the poor, we can talk.

Hell, at least Michelle Bachman had the guts (briefly) to just say that Obama is anti-American.

Late Post Today:
The Rude Pundit's gotta make sure that the socialists are spreading the wealth. Back later with Colin Powell, Bolsheviks, and more.

Farewell to Cursor:
Way before Huffington Post and long, long before the Daily Beast, Cursor.org was a lefty daily news aggregator that was blissfully straightforward. There was always something to discover there, and its editors were conscientious about linking to the best in progressive journalism. It was one of the sources of inspiration for the Rude Pundit, and that is why it was one of the first links ever put on this blog.

And, goddamnit, it lost its funding and is gone. After over seven years, it shuttered up a week ago. The Rude Pundit will pour a forty on the curb for its loss.

Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Think About Chilling the Perrier-Jouet and Breaking Out the Beluga:


That's President George W. Bush's head propped up on a giant black stone. It seems a bit barbaric, but, to be fair, so have the last eight years. We probably could have waited until January at this point, but the McCain campaign needed a game changer and a definite way to distance itself from this administration.

Bush's head was displayed at the Chamber of Commerce in DC today, where it tried to reassure the nation about the vortex of the economy. Most people couldn't pay attention, though. They were appalled that a disembodied head was speaking in some horrible, garbled, barely human voice-like sound. "Why the fuck is it still talking?" a man in the audience was heard to scream. "It's just a head. Are we living in a nightmare?"

Others just stared, aghast, some vomiting up their danishes and crullers, as the head offered, "America is the best place in the world to start and run a business. America is the most attractive destination for investors around the globe. America is the home of the most talented and enterprising and creative workers in the world. We're a country where all people have the freedom to realize their potential and chase their dreams."

"There is no God, there is no God" a woman sobbed when Bush's head said, "This promise has defined our nation since its founding; this promise will guide us through the challenges we face today; and this promise will continue to define our nation for generations to come." No one could take the words seriously because, indeed, no one could be sure that it wasn't simply the devil speaking through the head. Most just wanted it to stop talking.

The head was taken from the stage to be frozen until it needed to make another appearance, but by that time, it wouldn't be able to speak, because, in all likelihood, all that would be left is the top half of it.

The Third Presidential Debate: Barack Obama Is Not Campaigning to Be Your Friend:
Oh, John McCain, you brought all your sport equipment last night. You brought your baseball and your football. You put on your boxing gloves and your cup. You stretched, warmed up, and took the field, got into the ring, ran onto the court. You stood there with your bat, you took the ball out, you got ready for the kick off, you were waiting for the puck to be dropped. All uniformed up. Unfortunately, Barack Obama didn't show up at Hofstra to play any of your games. In fact, Obama said, more or less, that you should go shove your cleats up your ass and let the grown-ups deal with grown-up problems.

Last night's debate was something of a critical wounding of the Atwater/Rove school of political evisceration. Simply put, Obama's attitude to all the lawn darts McCain brought - the Ayers nonsense, the ACORN stupidity, the Obama-kills-babies lie, the "present" vote bullshit, and more - was to react and behave like it was all nonsensical, stupid, lying bullshit. He answered every accusation directly, but with a near-mournful attitude, as if to say, "Really, John? This is really what you want to talk about?" What Barack Obama did last night was to school John McCain in the rhetoric of crisis and McCain could only sputter and rage as he kept trying to get Obama to play with him. He may as well have been pleading, "C'mooon."

Obama's approach to the whole campaign has been incredibly straightforward: He is not running to be your buddy, Americans. He is running to be your president. He's not gonna say he likes your fuckin' pork rinds just to make you like him. (The times he veered briefly into that kind of pandering were just embarrassing, and he's avoided them since the primaries.) And he's not gonna stand for the kind of fucktardery that's taken down Democrats the last two elections, as well as during the Reagan/Bush years. Yeah, he addressed each thing that McCain mentioned, but he cut McCain's nuts off and held them up for McCain to see when he turned it back on the Republican: "I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Senator McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me."

At that moment, Barack Obama pretty much dragged Karl Rove out onto the stage, pulled down that fat fuck's pants, pointed at his tiny dick, and laughed. As for McCain, it was more or less the end of the election. He may as well have said, "Fuck it. My bitch is rich, so, honey, start the jet and let's go to Cabo."

McCain had one line he had practiced real good, and he waited for his chance to use it like a trapdoor spider hidden in the dirt hopes prey passes by. When the Arizona senator said his "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush" line, he looked like the kid at the spelling bee who knows he spelled his word correctly. But it didn't leave a mark on Obama. Time and again, when McCain tried to flailingly stab at Obama, the Democrat just calmly moved an inch or two one way or the other, leaving McCain stumbling, trying to get his footing back. That smile Obama kept on his face? It was the knowledge that McCain had charged at Obama and ended up falling off a cliff. The Rude Pundit's favorite grin was when Obama realized that all McCain had was Joe the fuckin' Plumber.

Look at just one thing here. When the whole issue of trade with Colombia came up (something that most people don't give a shit about), McCain, ever the motherfucker, lectured, "But maybe you ought to travel down there and visit them and maybe you could understand it a lot better." Without even pausing, Obama launched into a defense of workers' rights in that country, which hewed to his theme of giving power back to the disempowered. What the fuck was McCain gonna say to the fact that union organizers are being killed in Colombia? Oh, yeah, he tried to bring up Hugo Chavez, but, as ever, Obama smiled that smile of the leopard that knows he's faster than the old gazelle he's taking down.

And when McCain said that "women's health" is an extremist position in abortion policy, a fuckin' army of Sarah Palins wasn't gonna save him.

Don't believe anyone who says McCain won or that it was even close. He was an angry leprechaun screaming at the man who stole his pot of gold. And, at the end of the day, John McCain seemed less like a major party candidate and more like a pissed-off Dad telling his college-aged daughter who she can and can't date, and, for no rational reason he can explain, he certainly doesn't want her fucking around with the black guy. Unfortunately for him, she's all grown up now and can make her own decisions.

A Brief Observation on Tonight's Fisticuffs:
If you keep tossing shit into a strong, cool wind, you will end up covered in shit.

Joe the Plumber?:
Wait, wait, wait - that sounds familiar. (Link way NSFW).

That's right: Neighborhood Watch 30, a fine amateur porn video, with the following description: "Joe the plumber is an expert when it comes to cleaning pipes. By coincidence, Kaylynne has several pipes in serious need of a reaming! And as we all know, a hard plumber is good to find."

Joe the plumber is doing just fine.

What Obama Should Say (Rude Version), Part 3:
If, at tonight's debate at Hofstra, John McCain mans up and actually attacks Obama on Bill Ayers, and the Democratic candidate doesn't say, "Goddamn, Johnny Maverick, you don't know what everyone else knows. It's over, motherfucker. Whether you wanna admit it or not, it's over. Put this cocksucker in the history books and scribble down, 'Landslide' next to it, 'cause, unless you find me in bed with a dead white boy, it's finished. Now, you need to decide how you wanna walk to the guillotine. You can go up to that platform, put your head down nice, and accept your fate, go out with a little honor. Or you can be a punk ass bitch and try to run away or cry or punch the guards or piss yourself. But either way, man, your fuckin' stringy-haired head is comin' off.

"You know why you're done? Because everyone's fucking tired of the Vietnam War. Not only that, but the Vietnam War doesn't fucking matter anymore to most of the people in the country. It's passed its political expiration date, motherfucker, and that means your story doesn't matter. And Ayers doesn't matter. None of the same fuckin' arguments hold water. We got our own goddamned war and our own goddamned ripped-up and shattered vets filling the VA hospitals. It means you're not as fuckin' special as you once were, Maverick Man. So shove your bullshit about Ayers up your ass. Forty years ago might not seem like that long to you, but to most people, it's a fuckin' lifetime.

"You lost, man, you lost because all the shit you been shoveling into a giant pile has finally tipped over and covered you in turds. I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. Right here, right now, I'm take out this skull. You see it? You know whose skull it is? It's Ronald Reagan's. And now I'm gonna take out my dick and fuck his skull, right in his eyehole where his lying-ass twinkling eyeballs used to be. Watch me fuck the Gipper's skull, man, watch me turn it into my bony bitch. Damn, that was good fuckin'. And then, once I'm president, I'm gonna get Milton Friedman's skull and fuck the shit out of that. And I'm gonna get William Rehnquist's skull and fuck it. And then I'm gonna get William F. Buckley's skull, even if it's still got meat on it, and I'm gonna fuck it in the mouth. I'm gonna skull fuck all those people who turned this country into a bullshit version of what it was. Shit, I'm gonna fuck Dick Cheney's skull while he's still using it, maybe get Joe Biden to double team it with me, fuckin' his skull until his poisoned fuckin' heart explodes.

"And as for you, Johnny Maverick? No, I won't skull fuck you. But, shit, you're not calling out motherfuckers who say they wanna kill me? What kind of pussy are you? You know we gotta work together. But you're gonna spend a little time suckin' dicks, mine and Biden's, and you can call 'em 'my friends,' 'cause you're gonna know 'em well. See, with 60 Democratic senators, you and Lieberman can form your own party of smug fuckers who have outlived their usefulness.

"Oh, and I'll be sending some badass motherfuckers from my Justice Department to Alaska to fuckin' anal probe and prosecute the fuck out of Little Miss Sarah and her trailer trash husband," then the debate will be worthless.