This set of clips from Slick Willy’s appearance on The View — put together by a (disclosed) McCain/Palin supporter — is worth watching, because in the final minute and a half the former President says an awful lot of things that sound like a quiet endorsement for John McCain. Clinton says he’ll be voting for Obama, “because I’m a loyal Democrat,” but then proceeds to offer some unmitigated compliments to John McCain.

Interesting.

John McCain’s Chief of Staff, Mark Buse, was outed today.

This is a video taken by his ex-boyfriend in 2000.

People close to Mark say he’s been in a “glass closet,” being rather “open” to those around him and to his family, rather than trying to appear heterosexual. Meaning: John McCain probably knew full well he was gay.

How does this change your views of McCain?

Hey, have you seen the video of Charlie Gibson interviewing VP candidate Sarah Palin?

No?

You can watch it here.

And, like, yes, it is painfully obvious that this woman is laughably unqualified to run the United States. Charlie Gibson asks her about the Bush Doctrine, codified in 2002, and she clearly has no idea what he’s talking about, and he rubs that in. He uses big words like “existential” and “hubris” and she clearly has no idea what those words mean, although she does a decent job of interpreting them in context. Charlie pronounces “nuclear” correctly repeatedly, highlighting the fact that she pronounces it incorrectly, repeatedly, and jesusfuckingchrist wasn’t the whole point of this election to get someone — anyone — in office who could correctly pronounce the word “nuclear”?? She’s never met a foreign head of state, but mentions that you can actually see Russia from some parts of Alaska, so that’s kind of the same thing, right? It just goes on and on. She has absolutely no grasp on the history of U.S. foreign policy. It’s worse than I expected, honestly. It’s horrible. I mean, it’s horrible.

And it occurs to me that it doesn’t matter.

It’s not news to me that Sarah Palin knows nothing about foreign affairs. And it’s not news to John McCain.

Here’s the thing: I’m kind of a bitch. And, every now and then, I run into somebody very stupid and painfully uneducated who disagrees with me about something. And, most of the time, I let it slide and move on because I just have better things to do than argue with uneducated, irrational people. But sometimes I’m just in a bad mood for whatever reason, and looking to make someone else feel like a total idiot, and so that’s what I do. I leverage the fact that I have a ton of first-rate education and training in logic to argue that perfectly nice person into a corner and make them look like an absolute fool, and when they’re on the floor and bruised and beating and coughing up blood, I kick them some more. And then some more. Because I’m a grumpy bitch and I’m gonna take it out on them. And when I do that, a funny thing happens. My friends — who I know agree with my side of the argument in theory — start to side with the other person. Because it’s painful to watch an innocent, simple, poorly educated nice person get ripped to shreds intellectually, and you feel obliged to defend that person.

Charles Gibson went to Princeton University, and currently serves on their Board of Trustees.

Sarah Palin attended a series of small colleges in Idaho, eventually managing to graduate from the University of Idaho.

Whose education sounds more like yours?

If the remainder of this election is going to consist of Ivy-educated old men making Sarah Palin look like a fool, you can just go ahead and hand John McCain the keys to the White House. Because it doesn’t matter that she’s a fucking idiot. It doesn’t matter in the Gibson interviews and it won’t matter in the VP debate. She’s a fucking idiot with five kids and a sweet, young face and she’s trying really hard and she loves America and don’t you dare act all high and mighty on her just because you went to some fancy school and got some fancy education and know all these facts and statistics and things because there is more to a person than just how many silly facts they can pull out of their ass.

It does not matter that Sarah Palin is a moron. As long as these fancy-pants old men keep making her look like a moron, she’s going to win over voters. They may not quite know why, but they’ll find themselves rooting for her. Could this approach ever work with Hillary? No, it could not. Because Hillary Clinton is competent. Would it work on a male VP candidate who was equally ill-informed? No. We expect men to be competent.

The selection of Sarah Palin as VP candidate has absolutely nothing to do with feminism. It’s just the opposite. It’s about playing on our natural inclination to expect less from women. It’s gross, it grows increasingly infuriating to me as time passes, and, also, it’s working.

Here’s the much buzzed-about photo of Senator John McCain, celebrating his birthday in 2006 on a yacht, along with Raffaello Follieri and Anne Hathaway.

Follieri, you’ll recall, recently pled guilty to like 5000 federal counts of total illegalness.

You can read the full story on this meeting here. I would read it and talk about it, but it’s long and seems complicated and there are no pictures. And you know how I feel about reading things that have no pictures.

I kind of wanted to make this a “Caption This” but decided against it since we already did one today. But feel free to try your hand at commenting it anyway, if you’d like.

I’m in the gym tonight, jogging away on the treadmill (going on two months smoke-free, woot woot!!! I can JOG!!!) and I have my iPod on and I’m blasting my music, but the guy running next to me has the TV tuned to CNN. And I can’t hear anything they’re saying, but they’re obviously talking about Sarah Palin. And they’re just showing clip after clip after clip of her hitting the campaign trail with McCain. Smiling, waving, holding her baby, embracing her daughters, looking sisterly with Cindy McCain, and I’m trying to get to the bottom of something that is bothering me quite a bit right now: This woman stands opposed to everything I believe in, so why do I like her? Why am I not filled with rage and fear every time her bespectacled, grinning face shows up next to McCain’s? Why am I drawn to this woman who’s been thrust into the national spotlight after spending a lifetime fighting against the things I fight so ferociously for?

And then it hits me.

Barack Obama’s spent the past eighteen months offering this country change.

John McCain, now, is offering us a mother.

McCain is no political novice, and I figured he had a damn good reason for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. In retrospect, I can’t believe it took me so long.

Barack Obama’s a brilliant orator, a charismatic leader, clearly an erudite man and a voice passionately preaching Something Better that we can rally behind in this time of Very Serious Issues. And John McCain simply cannot fight him on those points. He’s painfully outmatched.

But isn’t it always a time of Very Serious Issues? Haven’t we just endured eight draining, tragic, gut-wrenching, traumatic, blood-filled years of Very Serious Issues? It’s been horrific and it’s seemed endless. And maybe, now, before we get back to the Very Serious Issues, it would be nice to go home to our mothers and put on our PJs and slippers and have her make us a nice warm bowl of soup and we can all curl up on her couch that always smells vaguely of her perfume and wrap ourselves up in the blanket she knitted four Christmases ago and watch Brady Bunch reruns on Nick at Night while we munch on her oatmeal cookies. And then maybe after that we’ll get back to the Very Serious Issues, but not yet. Right now, regardless of what we may claim to value in a candidate or an administration, we’re all exhausted, and we just want to be taken care of, tucked in, kissed goodnight and told that everything will look better in the morning.

Sarah Palin is, at first glance, what Hillary Clinton could not work into her own image no matter how hard she tried: she is a nurturer. And, right now, this country needs a nurturer. We didn’t even realize it until it was offered to us. And it’s a political strategy that’s never been attempted at this level, and it’s the right time and the right place and the right candidate and it hit me, tonight, that this is absolutely fucking brilliant.

It’s why you’re seeing Independents flock to McCain right now, and it’s why, IMHO, he’s got a damn good chance of winning this election now. Because it doesn’t really matter what gets said at the debates or where anyone stands on the issues. I wish it did, guys, but it doesn’t, not really. We vote from our hearts, not from our heads — especially at a time like this. Americans may have thought they wanted some abstract notion of change, but that was before they realized they could have a mother instead. World issues are scary. Mothers are not.

I’m not saying it’s the right way to win an election — and I’m in no way endorsing the McCain/Palin ticket — but I’m gonna go ahead and bet it’ll prove effective.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

BRILLIANT!

This is the kind of genius I wish I possessed. I don’t care who you’re voting for — this shit is funny.

If you want to see just the video showing on the bluescreen without the RNC stuff, it’s after the jump.

(more…)

Here’s Jon Stewart weighing in on the McCain camp and the Palin nomination.

Eh, you have to admit, she’s quite likable when she’s talking, and she’s got that whole adorable Tina Fey look going on and that cute little Alaskan accent.

Another observation: between Bristol “Juneau” Palin and her hottie boyfriend, Meghan and Cindy McCain and Sarah Palin’s hot librarian look, this has gotta be one of the most physically attractive Presidential tickets in the history of the United States. I mean, the Obama camp has Michelle, who is admittedly quite beautiful, but can she really hold up all alone against the sheer photogenicism of the McCain/Palin ticket? I can’t help but think that McCain must have taken all this into consideration as he was choosing Palin — the McCain and Palin families standing together, well, they sure do look pretty.

And I have to make yet another observation — I know many (not all!) of you are fond of getting chatty in the comments about how I should stay away from politics because I don’t know anything about it. And I’ll happily admit to the latter. I don’t know much about politics at all. But you know what, motherfuckers? I’m an adult citizen of the United States who has never been convicted of a felony (thanks to my awesome lawyers!!) and my totally uninformed ass can march to the polling center and vote however I damn well want, and it will count every bit as much as Bill Clinton’s or Karl Rove’s or your vote in the general election. And you know what else, motherfuckers? Most people in this country know even less about politics than I do. They have their opinions — either deeply or loosely held — about things like gay marriage and stem cell research and the war in Iraq and Roe v. Wade or whatever, but, when it comes down to it, they understand the short- and long-reaching impact of economic and foreign and domestic policy decisions even less than I do. But you know what’s super duper funny? Their vote counts! Yes! It does! Just as much as yours, Mr. Genius Political Ingenue Who Occasionally Enjoys Leaving Unpleasant Comments on Celebrity Gossip Blogs.

So, frankly, the fact that my understanding of politics — or lack thereof — is representative of the majority of Americans actually makes my opinions more valuable than the opinions of people who know big words and important-sounding phrases and statistics and history and read The Economist and whatnot. Because I’m going to make my decision based entirely on what I see and hear and think on the surface, because I’m not equipped with the economic, historical or international framework to delve a whole lot deeper than that. And that makes me unique among American voters only to the extent that I am willing to admit that publicly. That’s kind of one of the grotesque beauties of politics in a functional democracy: I don’t have to know what I’m talking about for my opinion to matter more than the people who do know what they’re talking about.

I’m just saying.