There are a great many things wrong with this malarkey.

First of all, Sarah Palin, you may have heard at some point that you are, “the gift that keeps on giving,” and well, this is not a compliment. You gave the national media, a pack of bored hyenas the reddest meat they could have dreamed of: a yokel-sounding shit talking cougar who is stubborn enough so that she has no idea when she is factually wrong, which in your case, turned out to be as often as when words came out of your mouth. There seemed to be about 3 things you’d say per day that made anyone grounded in reality snort milk out their nose. Caroline Kennedy, on the other hand, has only really given the media one thing, her diction, or lack of control thereof. No factual missteps, no troopergates, no prego-Bristols, no Bridge-To-Nowhere … I could go on, but you know, Sarah, you must have seen some of it all, there was a lot that was covered of you that seemed critical. Why was The Big Bad Media being so critical of poor ol’ you? Because you were wrong.

You want to know why Kennedy isn’t being torn apart by every single late night host still earning a paycheck? She’s asking to be chosen to fill the Carpet Bagger Senator Seat of New York, not running to be elected as Vice President, to a Presidential Candidate whose aesthetic made one eager to put his name in an office death pool.

The social class thing, though, really? What defines social class? Your … well, diction? That folksyness of yours? That bullshit put-on folksy nature used to make the retarded fifth-grade dropouts who voted for you either want to be you or want to … how would you put this … “Drill, Baby, Drill”? Well, okay, here are some of the differences I can find between you and Caroline:

One: Caroline Kennedy sleeps in a four post bed, and Sarah Palin falls asleep in her in-house tanning bed.

Two: Caroline Kennedy speaks The Queen’s English, while Sarah Palin speaks The Burger King’s English.

and finally, one of the reasons why many will never take you seriously, Sarah, is this gem:

Caroline Kennedy was the subject of the song “Sweet Caroline,” by Neil Diamond, and Sarah Palin was the subject of a porno Larry Flynt made called, “Nailin’ Paylin.”

We said goodbye to McNulty & Co this year, here's an image from one of their sets.

Before I decided to come back to the keyboard to clean this shitstorm of mental cobweb-ery out, I brought out a nice bottle of wine … and this clip. Bissinger vs. Leitch. Watch to get yourself in the mood to rip the old dead world apart.

Throw on that Johnson&Jonson record to bring me back down, and here we are:

There’s a vibe going around right now, this whole big FUCK 08 thing. Sure we lost our economy down a drain more gutter than Amy Winehouse’s breath, but this was a brilliant year if you can look past that, which you might have to, in order to sleep at night. I got to meet people who create stuff I love, and they were all awesome. Hendrik Hertzberg, Matt Taibbi, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Elizabeth Moss, Common, Nas (who gave daps to everyone on the line, including yours truly), Jeremy Piven (briefly, as he had to get back into his SUV to his Nordic looking model girlfriend who must have been treating him for the Mercury Poisoning), and I think I’ve seen Jack McBrayer (30 Rock’s Kenneth The Page) enough on the subways for him to think I’m stalking him.

Oh yeah, and The Giants Won The Superbowl, Crushing Tom Brady & Bill Bellicheat, Ending Their Perfect Season.

Start off where the year jumped off at, the #1 Movie of 2008, pronounced by yours truly Mr. With A Passion:

2008′s Top Ten Movies

1. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is a movie you probably didn’t see and that’s because it had zero push behind it. The release felt confined to the pitiful location of The IFC Center, which still feels somewhat irrelevant for it’s nabe. 4 Months is the Romanian mindfuck about the odds against anyone in late 80′s Romania who wanted abortion, specifically two college students. The film is as well shot as anything made all year and on a shoestring budget, Cristian Mungiu, the film’s writer and director has produced a time vault level item for a year where the GOP restoked the fires of the pro life culture war army thanks to the fact that Wasillans are as dumb as pissed on dirt. 

2. The Dark Knight transcended both the crime and superhero genres, thanks to a stellar cast, most of whom have not received the kudos they deserve, yet that’s still appropriate given the shadow that Heath Ledger’s death, a colossal kick in the jaw to millions, still casts over the first superhero film to possibly reasonably merit, nay demand, an Academy Award (but, fuck, Paul Haggis has a fucking Oscar, so how valuable are they really?). A.O. Scott might have only done this to get someone to carve a smile into his face (I know a pint size powerhouse who will wreak havoc upon voters if this whole Tom Cruise for Supporting Actor in The Five Minutes of Tropic Thunder He Was In Where He Played The All Too Easy Role Of A Fat White Guy Dancing To Rap, and Scott, she’ll find you, too). Eckhart’s Harvey “Two Face” Dent is another villain portrayal that unquestionably made it’s case to be the definition of a decades old character. The older class comes out of this movie even better, as Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Cane all bring their A Game to the franchise, providing a real base for the film, one where characters sometimes get left in the trail to fight scenes, gadgets, and the zigs and zags of a finely tapered plot (not that TDK doesn’t have those three in spades, which it does).

3. Waltz With Bashir snuck in under the wire, on 12/26/08 in limited release. Think Waking Life‘s aesthetic yet less douchey in every regard including characters, the perspective of Full Metal Jacket, but the damn thing is a documentary about The First Lebanon War. The 26 dogs will haunt you as they haunted me, as this is one movie you cannot miss in theaters. It’s probably still over at Cinema Village or something, but you must go out and find it. The power of the images produced deserves more than your tv set, this is not for Netflix, this is why we go to the cinema, to be fucked with by way of our minds expanded.

4. Let The Right One In, is the proof that the Swedes work on levels we can’t even touch. From all the sources I’ve got, it seems that while Twilight is a capable half decent movie, it’s based on a book series of the same quality of Goosebumps. Let The Right One In, on the other hand, is based on a novel, which was adapted for the screen by the actual author of the novel. The result is a brutal depiction of elementary school bullying, and one of the finale fights felt like some sci fi fantasy take on Columbine, and where the blood gets the most perverse laugh out of the audience you will find all year.

5. A Girl Cut in Two, the latest Chabrol film is a great love triangle film, a phrase I don’t find myself saying that often, or ever, really. François Berléand is the kind of actor whose face you’ve known for decades, yet never connected to a name. Here, he plays a renowned author who’s latest fancy is weather girl Gabrielle, played pitch-perfect by Ludivine Sagnier. But their romance isn’t anything to write home about until the nefarious Paul Gardens, a bougie douche who could go toe to toe with the Chuck Bass’s of the world any day, who treats Gabrielle like she’s his birthright. This triangle does not end well, not that they ever do.

6. Wall•E, was possibly the most beloved animated movie since Toy Story, yet this time the adults were more in love with the story than the kids were. This has a lot to do with the film’s (more) mature (than usual) subject matter: We’ve Fucked The Planet Royally & Spend Most Of Our Time As Sedentary Snoozing Schmucks. It was good, but really didn’t grab me as much as the top 5 did.

7. Milk was a great movie. Everything worked, except for the unlikeable character Diego Luna played which felt too close to stereotype. I wonder, though, that if this movie came out at a different time, would it have had the same impact without the election and the passing of prop hate?

8. Frost/Nixon brought Ron Howard to an all too prescient topic and accomplished everything it had to while avoiding the SNL Skit vibe that Oliver Stone’s W. suffered from. Why Mickey Rourke had to make his comeback in the year Frank Langella made an amazingly deserving Oscar performance we won’t know.

9. Synecdoche, New York is for all intensive purposes (Thanks Tavit!) intents and purposes, Charlie Kaufman’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. A film so enamored with itself that the cartoons on tv, which barely have any purpose, point, or use, are also made by the filmmaker. I think it’s good Kaufman got this out of his system so he can move on to make less frustratingly dense films. The last half hour is a bulldozer of mindfuckery that grated all nerves.

10. The Wrestler. I used to watch pro wrestling, and for anyone in a similar predicament, Arronofsky’s small film about the horrors that wrestling inflicts on the human body this is a tough film to watch. Hell, it’s a tough film for anyone to watch, but it wouldn’t have fallen to the 10-er if the Marisa Tomei character had more going for herself plot wise. But I guess that’s why they called it The Wrestler and not The Stripper Who Has An Oscar. Rourke’s performance was so brilliant that he’ll have his own soon enough.

Honorable Mentions: Che, for making 4.5 hours not seem that long; Transporter 3, the best pure action movie I’ve seen in a while; Vicky Cristina Barcelona for giving Woody Allen a reason to give us all a reason to ogle Scarlet and Penelope some more; and Rachel Getting Married, for having Tunde Adebimpe of TVOTR singing at a wedding.

The rest of this closing the books on a year below

2008 was also a year music was released, and Auto-Tune made you wish it hadn’t been.

Top 10 Records/Moments Of The Year:

1. TV On The Radio’s Dear Science as well as their 3rd night at The Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Antibalas, their brass section, was so the icing on a cake that might not have even needed anything beyond the base, but took the night to that proverbial next level. “Love Dog” off of DS has to be one of my songs of the year. I know every blogger is wacking to that Put A Ring On It nonsense, but I like my music weird and not to be the shit I’m gonna hear on the ringtone three desks away, as I’ve heard the Numa Numa sample and the three seconds after it from “Live Your Life” every day for a month or few now. “Love Dog” is just killer. You find a song every now and then that you can trick yourself into thinking is speaking to you. This is that song for me.

2. Nas, a record that would have been called something else if record sales weren’t the worry of everybody. If only Nas had “My President” on his record instead of “Black President” this would have been the album of the year and had the anthem of the year, and not just have been a great Nas album supported by some of the best videos of the year, the first of which for a song that didn’t make the album, all Blue Magic and shit.

- Be A Nigger Too

- Sly Fox

3. Killer Mike’s I Pledge Allegiance To The Grind 2 & This Video of Killer Kill at Fat Beats talking about how to open an album.

It was a weird year for rap. T.I. sampled the Numa Numa song. Kanye was singing. Bun B spent the whole year with Pimp C on his mind. Mike, though, made the non-Batman sequel of the year.

4. Hot Chip’s Made In The Dark, was the record that was released too early to do any damage on most lists, but it still kicks some ass around in my book.

5. Sigur Rós’ Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust & their stint at the United Palace Theater. Great show, beautiful album, I wish I had more of a take-away than I hate seating based concerts where people arrive late and block the fucking view.

6 Q-Tip’s The Renaissance: in a city where dressing like it’s still the 80′s and rap finally merged on Houston St., the music didn’t match up all that well with groups like The Cool Kids who seemed more about Pharrell kinda beats than they seemed about the old school hip hop. Leave it to Jonathan Davis, (yes, the guy from Korn shares his name with Q-Tip) to bring the love of the craft back. “Move” is actually two songs in one, with “Renaissance Rap” coming in near the end of the track, which is like saying after you’re done with a Papaya King dog, here’s another one for ya for free.

7. Scarface dropped Emeritus in December, and it got no coverage and no promo and that’s not entirely unusual, but I get why he wants to drop the rap game when it’s disrespecting him so much.

8 The Raconteurs released Consolers Of The Lonely all Radiohead-like and release an album with not much commotion or promotion and … they were ignored for it. Unfortunate, as it’s a damn fun record.

9. Madlib releases two great records Beat Konducta Vol. 5: Dil Cosby Suite, and WLIB AM: King Of The Wigflip.

10. Brown Bag AllStars on the rise. I was lucky enough to see the crew from Fat Beats at the Fire Your Boss shows, their self titled mixtape is awesome, and the blog is a great way to keep track of them as they’re on their come up. I know them cause I went to college with Soul Khan, who is consistently obliterating fools in rap battles.

The List for 2008 in TV

1. The Election. Spoiler Alert: Obama Wins, as does Rachel Maddow.

2. The Wire. Check this out: Photos from an abandoned The Wire soundstage. Amazing.

3. Lost. Possibly the best year since the first. Everyone talks about “The Constant” but honestly, that ending really ripped everyone else in terms of setting the bar.

4. Mad Men. Their season finale is second only to Lost’s.

5. 30 Rock.

6. Daily Show/Colbert.

7. House.

8. How I Met Your Mother. Perfect resolution to the Sarah Chalke plotline.

9. The Office.

10. Craig Ferguson.

Hey, here are some links to stuff you should read

http://2or3things.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-set-at-table-at-24-its-real-easy.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/magazine/04wwln_safire-t.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/movies/awardsseason/04oscars.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Fuck A. O. Scott for pushing the whole Tom Cruise should get an Oscar for being a dick and dancing to rap while wearing a fat suit, and bald cap. Doesn’t he know that’s what Cruise is like at home?

http://youlooknicetoday.com/episode-guide

Listen to the Hodgman episode, but note how poorly the side column renders on their site.

http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T-LC5HP01&ev_ad=Huffington_Arianna&xad=Huffington_Arianna

Rick “The Dick” Warren

Warren is some tremendous kind of asshole. The video below exposes some lying of his regarding what in fact he’s compared to homosexuality. Spoiler Alert: Pedophilia & Incest!

This is the last part of the piece that I’m writing, because I don’t want to fuck it up, I’ve kept this rant in for a while to stew and such. First of all, regarding Warren’s so-called great works in Africa on AIDS, Max Blumenthal over at The Daily Beast, writes about how Warren’s still on that Abstinence-Only Bullshit. What I first wondered when I came across the Warren pick was “Why?!??!!” Obama was forced to go to that damn public job interview at Saddleback where he didn’t seem comfortable at all, but maybe that was because of the crowd of crazies who were there.

During the primaries, Democrats were concerned with one thing and one thing alone in 2008: winning, and sometimes to win, you need someone who can talk religion without faking it, and we found out Obama was that person. I don’t know if that had anything to do in my decision, but hey, we won. The story that Rev. Wright should have taught us was that Obama is drawn towards the most powerful of the religious types because they have the assets to help him further his causes and his wait for it career.

I wish Obama hadn’t picked Warren. It’s insulting that it did. It’s great political chess, but that’s what some people said about the Sarah Palin pick.

I’m not satisfied with what I’ve said on the subject, it’s lacking to say the least. Others have said much wiser things about the Warren b.s., so here are their articles:

EVERYTHING I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT RICK WARREN by John Hodgman

Hendrik Hertzberg on Warren

You’re Likable Enough, Gay People by Frank Rich

On Sandler:

So, way back in JUNE, I wrote the sole Successfully Commented On post of this blog:

http://withapassion.com/2007/06/26/adam-sandler-is-just-another-republican-douche-bag/

That post continues to get more comments than anything else I post here, which is like saying Punch Drunk Love is the most intelligent Sandler film, yes, you have a point, the competition is as smart as the chef at a Wasilla meth lab.

To be a republican right now, which is to say, being a voting republican right now, voting to try and put Sarah Palin into the White House, is to be the worst of our country. I say this with a heavy conscience as I have more than a few family members who did just that: Voting McCain/Palin 08.

But this wasn’t always the case, voting McCain wasn’t the worst thing you could have done in the voting both. I know everyone’s shocked I’m saying this but just think back to the primaries. With the exception of Ron Paul, McCain was one of the sole voices of reason on the stage for the Republican debates. Rudy Giuliani, now that was a candidate nobody, except for Sandler, and a friend of mine who also lost money, (albeit via gambling and not donating) on Rudy, who as we saw, was not the same Rudy of The Clash’s words, as he could very easily FAIL.

Rudy Giuliani is one of the most slimy despicable bastards of the GOP who isn’t currently in office, which is saying something, still.

Sandler donated $2,100 to the Giuliani ’08 campaign. This made Sandler persona non grata in my book, until I found out he’d been responsible for helping a underseen indie film I won’t name get made.

But this post managed to rile up so many of Rudy’s Stans and so many Rush Limbaugh wannafucks that I had to bring it up again.

What’s been funny to me about the backlash is also one of the great pillars of the internet: people calling people idiots while they forget the entire concept and practice of proper grammar.

Check this, from Dave:

But can I really explain why I love ”I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry and would be delighted never to hear Taylor Swift’s ”You’re Not Sorry” again? No. All I can say is that I find ”the taste of her cherry ChapStick” in ”Girl” entrancingly sexy,

While I’m a fan of the freedom of speech, I think Stephen King has now proven that for him, speech is a priviledge and he has just warranted his to be taken, and then shot into the sun. Possibly, if we can build a big enough rocket (a non tangible freedom and every copy of the issue of that magazine ever published shouldn’t take up much room right?) I’d like to give King his own seat in The Good Ship Old Dude. You’d have thought that Presidential Candidate and beauty paegant obsessee John McCain would have earned the key to Disturbing Geriatric Bastard-opolis for his checking-out-of Gov. Sarah Palin, but no, Stephen King couldn’t leave well enough alone with his column and litany of rapidly cranked out books, he had to make me puke all over the room.

John McCain ogled Sarah Palin as much as anyone else did (in public).

Tom Cruise & Will Smith

We push ourselves over the line all too frequently with our hatred of public figures and almost no public and not political figure has inspired more hate than Mr. Scientologist of the Century himself Tom Cruise, who this past year, it seems to be brought Will Smith in with him to the deplorable cult of scientology, an act worthy of inspiring more hate as it’s now almost ruining the ability to watch old Fresh Prince re-runs (I said Almost, “The Carlton” is still the greatest dance and the greatest reason to turn to Nick at Nite ever). But yes, Mr. Cruise was so hated on that it has now opened the door for his comeback. Not that that door is any way close to the closet door that he and Travolta were trapped behind in that South Park ep., but that door that allows for a second act to his career, because Hollywood loves a comeback and hates making room for new names. The Cruise comeback started with what I will call a colossal fail: his cameo bit role in Tropic Thunder wherein he donned a baldcap, some facial hair, and a fat suit, in order to remind people that those are all still characteristics that are not only hilarious, but ones which he himself is not cursed to retain off camera. Also, he danced to rap music!! Isn’t that hilarious? Funnier than the white guy in The Inside Job who had Kanye West’s “Golddigger” as his ringtone, which we all knew was hilarious because Spike Lee gave us that scene, a self indulgent wink and nod to the audience which broke the fourth wall again, and still sticks out as the most expendable moment in an otherwise recommendable film. Also, can someone get Katie Holmes to snap out of it? She used to carry herself with a zest for life, not the baggage of a fucking Holocaust survivor.

Will Smith has yet to actually come out of the Scientology closet, but his movies seem to be doing that for him, as I’ve heard the last 30 minutes of I AM LEGEND has more pseudo religious bullshit than you can shake a stick at, and the whole premise of Seven Pounds is bullshit and it’s ending will be spoiled in the image below.

The Barack Obama Coin & The Commemorative Plate

Never underestimate the ability of Americans to cheapen something with bullshit you can buy by calling a number you see on TV. Never.

Bill Kristol

The man carries a shitload of responsibility for getting McCain to learn of and lurve Sarah Palin. Continuing my rationale for rarely ever paying for the NYT.

And that was 2008.

There’s something called 2009 in progress. Promise I’ll be more organized.

That’s from Jay Smooth over at Ill Doctrine.

On November 5th, at around 1 in the morning, hours after it was announced that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of these United States of America, I did something I didn’t think I’d have the want to do again in my lifetime: I waved a flag, and I liked it.

In the southern side of Union Square last night, at around one in the morning, and probably well before then as well as well after then, things were, to use a parlance of the time, going down. I bumped into fellow Bard alumni who were reveling in President-Elect Obama’s victory, I waited on like outside of Artichoke hours later and the mood was as lively there as it has ever been. 14th Street was running deep in high fives.

For the rest of the post, click through the jump, I think all that video is a bit cloggy.

But let’s rewind. Let’s rewind back to 2004, actually. Yes, the speech is where I think the story starts, if we can momentarily forget that starting in 2001, George W. Bush began 8 years of shitting on the country that are finally about to be over.

In 2004, the Democratic Party should have picked Howard Dean. The Media and it’s choice to flick the Repeat-One switch on with regards to Dean’s scream. After that, It seemed as if half-man, half-Easter Island statue John Kerry was the pick. Except this was a shitty pick. Rhetorically, he was poorer than Al Gore at his lockbox-iest in 2000. Personally, the guy couldn’t inspire the party as he went water skiing, which was seen as douchey, which it very well may be when you’re supposed to be running an election.

But then, there was the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and I don’t remember much about where I was when I saw it, or even if I saw it live. I probably didn’t. I probably caught it online the next day. Here it is:

I loved that speech. You’d have to be the Grinch himself to scoff at that one. But Kerry was the nominee, so I couldn’t very well write Obama’s name in. I voted for Kerry, who then lost. On my way to the polling station in 2004, though, as I walked a mile in upstate New York, I listened to Jadakiss’ “Why?” remix featuring Styles P, Common, and Nas, and notably Common’s line, “Why’s Bush actin‘ like he tryin’ to get Osama, why don’t we impeach him, and elect Obama?” I made a screen name on AOL that revolved around the words Elect Obama.

So Kerry lost. Dean got the DNC leadership position. Nobody knew who would get the top spot in 2008. I remember someone tossed Russ Feingold’s name up.

Then the field was unveiled. I thought Edwards, Richardson, or Obama would be decent picks. I never really got the whole Hillary thing, as I thought she’d be unelectable, what with the hatred there is for the Clinton Brand. Joe Biden, I think, impressed everyone with the Ridy Noun Verb 9/11 joke, which sort of was his plea to the leading candidates to consider him a decent and witty attack dog VP.

Soon, though, it was whittled down to Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton. Hillary’s campaign was shit, not at the level McCain’s was, but it was shit. I thought Obama could appeal to more people because he wasn’t basing his run around negativity and how much whitey loves him the way Hillary did. Oh, and by the way, WHITEY LOVES THEM SOME BARACK OBAMA. Obama did 7pts better with White people than Kerry did. Hillary was making shit up left and right about being shot at in Kosovo and being Little Hillary Oakley growing up. Part of me wondered if enough of America was over race enough for Obama to win, and people like this crazy old bitch, who does not deserve to be named, was definitely the reason why I wondered about America being ready enough to elect then Sen. Obama:

These are the PUMA’s. Not much was left to be said about them after the point in time when I’d written this piece on them. I was wrong that they’d be a lasting waste of time, Sarah the Lipsticked-Pitbull and Faux the Plumber, both of whom I’ll get to later, filled the mindless gap left behind by operation repulsive idiotic white people angry that the public might believe a black man is better than they are.

During the thick of the Barack VS Hillary campaign it was obvious Keith Olbermann was on Obama’s side, and the backlash to the Olbermania happened with a New Yorker piece and after Keith set his Special Comment sights on Hillary after her reference to a possible attempt on then-Senator Obama’s life. It was the apex of Olbermann’s cringe-inducing ability. Since then, I’m happy to report he’s used his powers for good and not evil.

Speaking of Keith, he, and newly minted MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, became required viewing in my apartment. In an apartment where I had no physical roommates, I’d reached a point of watching the MSNBC 2-hours-of-power duo so much they were as frequently present as the Stewart/Colbert powerhouse. Someone had joked to me on Twitter that Keith and Rachel would spontaneously make out on TV if Obama won. This is funny cause you know: Rachel loves the ladies, and Keith loves, well, the ladies.

As things got more and more heated between Hillary and Barack, I got more and more amped up in my damnation of Sen. Clinton. What I took as undermining Barack as a candidate, I now can understand to be a fleshing out and testing out of his will as a candidate. The elongated primary made Obama 08 go to every single god damn nook and cranny of this craggy country a candidate for a major party nominee could go to. Bringing the Wright story to the forefront of the table then, as opposed to in the general election, is seen in hindsight as a preferable option. This all being said, fuck you very much Geraldine Ferraro. Whomever leaked the Obama in garb photo to Drudge thereby putting lighter fluid on the Secret Muslim meme, fuck you upside the face with a plunger. Bill, you just don’t get it anymore. You still don’t like Obama. We could all tell at that final rally. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kind of dig Hillary more than I dig you now. Bill, do something to prove me wrong.

Then, once Obama finally made it an undeniable mathematical impossibility for Hillary to get back in it, and by the way, NO MORE SUPER DELEGATES YOU STUPID FUCKING DEMS, which was hard to do, as Hillary and her people were living in what Rachel Maddow called “The Post-Rational Universe,” it became obvious it was Obama VS McCain, and it seemed like … well, some “Serious Journalists” had yet to realize John McCain wasn’t going to be running a “Serious Campaign,” even after the “Celebrity” ad. I remember talking about that ad to a centrist friend, a recovering Republican, who was happy for the commercial because it was actually working to help McCain in the polls, which I had a hard time denying.

Which brings me to a side note: part of my internet detox happening relates to how OCD I got over the polling stats. 1pm is a time with little significance to most other than it’s near or around lunch time. For me, it was a time to head to gallup.com to check their daily tracking poll for the election. Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight.com both were household names in my one man household, and I was especially interested when slaps flew between the two sites, regarding openness of methodology. Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight had his own method and practices, based around feeding stacks and stacks of polls into an algoithm to test out every single possibility for the election, questioned and mocked, especially by Dick Bennett of polling firm ARG who likened what Nate Silver did to palm-reading. Well Dick, Nate got the %age numbers for the candidates closer than anyone else did, within .1 for each of them. Who’s the gypsy bitch now, ya dick?

And there you see how silly my obsession became. I knew about infighting between pollsters. I praised Nate Silver’s site, which featured documentary photography work that would reveal how barely staffed McCain campaign offices are.

This was during the weekend before the election!

One of the photo documentaries also featured Sonja Sohn (Kima Greggs), Seth Gilliam (Ellis Carver), and Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris Partlow) of The Wire at an Obama rally. That site was so in-my-wheelhouse you’d have think I dreamt it.

We continued down the rickety path toward the election, with the big smack upside the head not being Obama’s pick of Biden, which could have really set the PUMA base up in smoke, but “McCain’s” pick of Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska; former Mayor of Wasilla, AK; one time beauty queen runner up and Ms. Congeniality winner (note, why did McCain keep saying he never won a congeniality award?). Ms. Palin who continues to run her mouth off at the media for their elitist sexist bull. Ms. Palin who I will now refer to, in my best elitist voice as a primo example of the SCUM OF THE EARTH. Ms. Palin hit the scene running around like a hateful alpha bee with an ember in her beehive.

My favorite moment of her being an evil evil bitch was the whole “I guess being a community organizer is kinda like being a small town mayor, except I actually had responsibility.” nonsense. My reply to this comment, is sort of a spoiler, but since we all know how this ends, let me say this loud and clear:

I guess being a small town mayor is kinda like being a community organizer except Barack Obama organized a country to elect him President, and kick you, Caribou Barbie, and your Sad Grandpa running mate, back to the shitholes from whence you came.

At this point, we turn to the renewed relevance of Saturday Night Live, which made the no duh decision to bring former cast member and head writer Tina Fey back to savage Sarah Palin. At one point, the joke on the table from Ms. Fey was exactly what Gov. Palin had said. When you’ve gone so far down the shitter that you’re unintentionally giving the comedians fodder, you’re gone off the rails.

It turned out that Palin wasn’t vetted by Team McCain 08 in the slightest. The campaign had gone further down that rabbit hole of empty politiking that we saw it start off on with the “Celebrity” ad.

Then … there were the debates. But before we could have the debates, McCain tried to put his campaign on hold because TEH ECONAMEE IS KRATERIN! and postpone the first debate. He cancelled on Letterman in what some, those being Letterman and Keith Olbermann, would jokingly refer to as a moment where the public saw behind the campaign curtain of lies from McCain Palin 08, as Letterman cut to the raw feed of McCain doing a Couric interview. Letterman yells into the monitor, “Mr. Senator, I have a question! Would you like a ride to the airport?”

Many, mostly conservative squawk-boxes like Pat Buchanan, blame McCain’s loss on the cratered economy. Well, maybe if McCain had picked Mitt “Nobody Likes Me” Romney, the economy wouldn’t have murked his chances. Sure, it wouldn’t have mobilized and reach-arounded his base, but that’s what your candidate is supposed to do BEFORE the VP pick.

Obama played it safe, to make Americans think he was safe; McCain played it like a blind man at a urinal, which made America think twice about which candidate they actually knew. Who the fuck is this senior citizen talking about nailing jello to the wall, they wondered in America. Palin tried to wink and change the subject through the sole VP debate, and America kinda bought it, thanks to the bar being set for her at a subterranean level.

Then there was the Palling Around With Terrorists & Real/Fake America cycle. Palin, doing something the McCain team claims she did on her own without authorization, led a cheer of Obama <3 Terrorists Long Time. The term terrorist by itself is questionable, as we all know by the time Obama met Bill Ayers, Ayers was as reformed as G. Gordon Liddy was the last time he and McCain jerked each other off. The pluralization of the word is where things get juicy and not to subtle in the implication: Obama and Osama roll together.

This led to a late in the game moment of the McCain Palin supporters are racist assholes meme, started by, well, said supporters, who, when presented with a camera in their faces, let loose with their crazy cannons:

So it was late in the game, and at the same time, Drudge linked to a story about Obama using the phrase “Spread the Wealth” when talking to a guy, Joe Wurzelbacher, who approached Obama while the Senator was campaigning door-to-door on his own behalf. Of course, McCain picked the meme of Joe, who called himself a plumber, which we now know to be a lie, during the final debate, which then started the hopefully now over 15 minutes of Faux The Plumber’s fame. McCain would blame Obama and the media for ruining Joe’s privacy.

Above, Joe would say Obama’s election would be the death of Israel, which Fox News anchor Shep Smith had to correct him on, more on Shep pwning self righteous idiots later when a certain old fool hits the nadir of his own career. Fox News’ program “Fox & Friends,” even had FtP on as a guest to chat. And there was even the rumor that Joe had done some strange with SNL’s Kristen Wiig, thankfully for my appetite, that has been debunked by Defamer.

A couple weeks before the election went down, I and my friend Eric went to PA to volunteer for the Obama campaign, as it was becoming increasingly public knowledge that McCain believed the primary season Hillary vote was the key to PA’s 21 electoral votes. The episode of the This American Life podcast, “Ground Game,” is a great documentation of both sides fighting for Pennsylvanians, more specifically, that thing called “Pennsyltucky” in between the Blue parts of PA. My experience in PA was far shorter, just an afternoon, and far worse. We were fired up and ready to … drive to an incorrectly typed in location thanks to an Obama PA intern who mistyped a word, causing me to waste three hours lost in PA with a 55 year old Nigerian man who lives in Brooklyn runs a limo company that calls him every five fucking minutes on the dot, had me read his credit card number over the phone to buy those tiny car calendars, and who had an accent thick enough to scare away some particularly unreachable whiteys in PA. There, I’ve said it. I wanted to not say any of that until Barack won. And he did.

But before he did, it was fun to watch the time run out. Drudge tried to claim Obama was going to ruin the coal industry. That didn’t work. McCain, Sarah Barracuda, and Faux all but called Obama a dirty stinking commie for the spread the wealth comment. That did nothing. The numbers tightened a little, but I think that’s more because McCain finally took the reins and told his batshit racist fan base to wise up and that Obama wasn’t an Arab. He didn’t say there wasn’t anything wrong with being an Arab though.

Election day happened. I was with my parents when I voted, waiting an hour and half in SoHo. Drudge and FOX tried to make the MSM flinch over OMG BLACK PANTHERS! And nobody cared. McCain had run such a shitty campaign, that even hardcore racists were voting Obama. Then the moment I knew it was probably over happened with MSNBC before it happened with any other network. They called PA for Obama. Nobody else would. I was worried they would have to un-call it. Then the rest followed suit. When FOX called PA for Obama, then it was his. The best moment of the night was when Turd Blossom himself was talking about how important Ohio was for McCain, and then Brit Hume had to break it to Rove that, well, Obama won Ohio.

Chuck Todd Misses The Fairer Sex & Knows Why McCain Lost

From then on out it was over. Obama hit 200 without California, so Keith Olbermann made it clear that well, with CA, Obama’s home state of Hawaii, and Oregon, it would essentially be OVER, which, by an uncharacteristically early, in this decade, 11pm EST, it was. McCain’s speech was good, his audience was made up of the only support he had left at this point, the angry racist douchebag demo. Did anyone see the weeping skinhead with the kid over his shoulder? Hi-larious.

So, then before I knew it, I was on 14th Street, or as I liked to call it: HIGH FIVE CITY. Bumped into some friends from Bard, one of whom kept demanding that the populous go streaking. And I waved a flag, a big flag on a big wooden stick. I think I might get me a flag now. Or maybe I’ll wait until Guantanamo is closed down. And now, for the pure funny section of the post, which is the ending:

A message from myself and the country, to Bible Spice.

Also, here are some words that Tracy Morgan spoke on TV before anyone in The Lower 48 knew what a Palin was:

And here’s a funny video from the series “Get Your War On” (LINK IF VIDEO ISN’T WORKING):

But to end on a brilliant note, here are photos acquired from AprilWinchell.com:

THAT IS ALL.

Internet, goodbye for a while. For a condensed version of this story head to http://thisfuckingelection.com

UPDATE: I know I didn’t talk Prop 8, but that’s still being fought, right? Fucking Mormon church assholes. Expect some thoughts on Prop 8 when I come back.

UPDATE THE 2nd: I wanted to get this out there, I HATE CANDY CROWLEY, WHAT A FUCKING ASSHAT.

Update the third: Remember, Blame Bill Kristol for Sarah Palin.

Gracious... NOT.

Somehow, more respectable.

You’ve been deleted from the Bias folder in my bookmarks.

DISAPPEAR LIKE POOF, BITCH-B-GONE!

Wait. Wait.
HE DID IT.

YES WE DID.

The Obama’s Aunti story passed through the central nervous system of the media, except there are still some marks of it in the anus of the media, Fixed Noise and Drudge, as I’ve said before, two websites that starting November 5th, I’ll be happy to not have to look at again for years.

The National Polling Average is at BHO +6.5 pts.

So what am I doing with my Sunday, well, as SundayTalk put it on Kos late last night, GOTf’nV. Getting out the fuckin’ vote. Phone banking’s for me today. I remember doing it in the twilight hours of the Kerry campaign at Bard, in a small room in one of the unused dorms. How things have changed. Today, I go to phone bank at the 40/40 club.

Find out how you can, here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/novvolunteers

What are you waiting for?

Some blog in the wordpress dashboard claims they have an agreement with Fixed News about the dreaded Michelle Obama tape. Why wouldn’t they release it tonight, though? It’s 3 Days and counting now, 3 days!

Maher questioned how happy the wonks out there will be happy when this thing is over. I know I’ll be happy* because, well, then I don’t have to use Drudge or Fox again for another 3.5 years, for crying out loud. Then I don’t have to worry about the shit that water carriers from the GOP like Amy Holmes say on Real Time and if anyone believes their bullshit anymore.