|link| Posted 5:45 AM by Brian Linse

Election Reflection #4: Letter to Jeff Jarvis

Hi Jeff:

Listen, bro, you know that I think you are one sweet cat, and that you have been one of my blog heroes right from the start, but this "Peace Pledge" thingy that you are on about now is really fucking pathetic.

You also ask your fellow Democrats to acknowledge Bush as "our president" and to "push him", but to use "honey" to do it... or something like that. I'm sure you are getting lots of link- love from the Right for this noble, and no doubt sincere effort. But trust me, Jeff, they are clicking over from the Right and laughing at you. Anyway...

Well, Jeff, to paraphrase Michael Corleone, "My offer is this: nothing."

Let's forgot, shall we, that you are asking me to make a "peace" pledge to the first US president to engage in a doctrine of preemptive war. Let's also forget that we already gave this demagogue a shot at being a "uniter" four years ago and he shoved it up our BlueState asses.

Let's also forget that we are talking about a man who considers compromise and reconsideration a sign of weakness.

But let's not forget that Bush is a man who actually won the office for the first time this year behind the votes of millions of fundamentalist Christians - voters who have a bill they'll be submitting for payment in judicial appointments. And let's not forget that Bush is a man who just weeks ago compared Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scot case; a man who stated that his models for Supreme Court Justices are Scalia and Thomas; a man who appointed John Ashcroft as Attorney General.

Let's not forget that this is a man who governed after losing the popular vote in 2000 as though he'd won a landslide victory. What do you expect of this man now that he has a spare 4 million votes and doesn't have to run for re-election? Do you really think he's gonna play nice now?

And, Jeebus, Jeff, he still can't fucking pronounce the word nuclear!

So, no buddy, I won't be taking your peace pledge.

I will, however, pledge to continue doing what I have always done on this site. I will don the cape of the bombastic, pissed-off liberal and call 'em like I see 'em.

And I will do everything in my power to thwart the efforts of an illegitimate leader and a very dangerous man.

Your pal,
Brian

PS: Go see our pal Matt Welch on this pledge idea.

|link| Posted 3:48 PM by Brian Linse

Election Reflection #3: The Youth Vote

Sgt. Stryker:

The Youth Vote, always trumpeted and always non-existent, didn't fail to disappoint this year. The same number of people between the ages of 18-29 voted in this election as the last, proving my theory that all they really know how to do is bitch and make music videos. When it comes to actually getting off their asses and walking the walk, they fail miserably. My advice to people between the ages of 18-29 who keep babbling over the airways and on the Internet: Shut the Fuck Up. You don't vote, so you don't matter. My advice to those between the ages of 0-18: Shut the Fuck Up and prepare to start paying for my Social Security in 30 years. I think I'll help raise the drinking age to 25 just to piss you off. What're you going to do about it? That's what I thought, bitches. Now go smoke your pot or go to your raves or whatever the hell it is you do these days. And get a job to help pay for my Social Security.

I'd also suggest to all you "Kids" out there that when the next "crisis" in some other bleak desert land requires Bush to draft your sorry ass into the military you should have the following words memorized: "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine."

And after your head has been shaved and you've been sent over to the Persian Gulf, and a member of our volunteer military tells you to run, shoot, duck, or shut the fuck up, you'd best do what they say. These are the people whose courage and sacrifice makes it possible for you to live in the world's greatest democracy without actually having to participate in it - well, at least until you get drafted anyway...

|link| Posted 3:34 PM by Brian Linse

Election Reflection #2: Jesusland

This pretty much sums it up:

Found this over at Ken Layne's place. Sez Ken:

Rove's re-election strategy was elegantly simple: Scare the bejesus out of Jesusland. Faggots are headed your way! Satanic Muslims are hiding everywhere! That's all it took to get Jesusland to do the job. Intellectual conservatives like the National Review staff are flattering themselves if they honestly believe Jesusland cares about conservative thought. The "reality-based" folks are learning that Jesusland doesn't even care about jobs or the economy. In Jesusland, it's all the will of Jesus. No job? No money? Daughter got her clit pierced? Jesus is just fucking with you again, testing your faith. Got the cancer? Oh well. Soon you'll be with Jesus. Reality is no match for a mystical world in which an all-powerful god is constantly toying with every detail of your mundane life, just to see what you'll do about it. Keep praying and always keep your eye out for homosexuals and terrorists, and you will eventually be rewarded ... all you have to do is die, and then it's SuperJesusLand, where you will be a ghost floating in a magic cloud with all the other ghosts from Jesusland, with Jesus Himself presiding over an Eternal Church Service.

|link| Posted 3:21 PM by Brian Linse

Election Reflection #1: Predictions & Anxiety

Well, my election prediction was clearly fucked. I did get the Ohio part right, but even the gang at MSNBC prolly figured that part out between snorting up rails in the Hardball Green Room.

The two things that caused me the most anxiety last night were worrying that Candy Crowley was just finally going to explode on-air (I swear she got bigger every time they cut back to her), and worrying about what Satanic message Dana Bash was communicating in Morse code with her freakish blinking eyes as she reported from the BushCo party house. That, and the fact that Dan Rather has now clearly lost his fucking mind.

Thank baby jesus I don't have to watch the TeeVee box for four more years.

|link| Posted 3:54 PM by Brian Linse

Election Blog Sites & News

I'll not be postng regularly tonight, but I'll be following the action at these sites:

Eschaton

Daily Kos

MyDD

Political Animal

Hit & Run

Josh Marshall

Rittenhouse Review

Slate

Google News

Ken Layne

My prediction as of 4pm Pacific is that it will be Kerry by a comfortable margin in the EC, and the action, if any, will be in Ohio and Florida.

|link| Posted 5:51 AM by Brian Linse

E-Day

The last 24 hours or so I've been pondering the fact that a significant number of people I know vote for candidates based on "gut" rather than partisan choice, issues, or other forms of measurable evidence. If I were forced to make a choice based on "gut", what would that be?

I spent some time thinking about all of my past votes, and my years living under presidents for whom I hadn't voted (exception, of course: Clinton), and what I came up with was remarkably simple.

Here it is: When I lay my little blonde head down on my pillow at night I'd like to think that the most powerful human being in the world, the person whose decisions can effect millions if not billions of people, is smarter than I am.

That's it, really.

When George H.W. Bush was president, I didn't like or vote for him, but I slept well. The senior Bush was an accomplished, and sometimes brilliant man, who, it's safe to say, was smarter than I am.

I didn't sleep so well during the Reagan years, but I was so much younger then that I think I harbored the hope that since Ronnie was so much older he must know some shit that I didn't know. Right?

The Clinton years? I slept like a baby. Say what you will, but Clinton was one smart mofo.

Now, I must stress that this really isn't asking for much. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, and until the year 2000 I think I just assumed that anyone who had managed to gain the nomination of a major party just had to be smarter than I was. I have a nice little degree from a major university, and I even went to the same prep school as Daddy and Boy George Bush, but I am absolutely not smart enough to be president of the United States of America.

Right now I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping well for four fucking years, and it's only in the past 24 hours that I've figured out why: I am clearly so much smarter than George W. Bush that it freaking terrifies me. Seriously. I have no doubt in my mind that I am smarter, and if I know that I'm not smart enough to hold the office then what the fuck is going on here?

Bad sleep, that's what. Four years of it.

Again, let me stress: I'm not saying that Bush is stupid. I don't believe he is. I'm just saying that I'm smarter than he is and that's not a good thing for the republic.

I'm sure I'll find plenty to disagree with during a John F. Kerry presidency, but right now I'm just looking forward to a good night's sleep next January.