The Macho Response: Rush Limbaugh

"My take on this is that we are all Americans and I am sick and tired of hyphenated Americans. Afro-American, Hispanic-Americans.

I am truly colour blind and I wish everyone else was. We Balkanise when we say only women can represent women in Congress and only Jews can represent Jews and only blacks can represent blacks. It's bullshit. We all want the same things. Prosperity and a decent education for our kids. Treating this country like it is stuck 50 years ago is bullshit; we have made more progress than anyone over this. Get over it. If Obama says stupid things I'm not going to say they are not stupid because he's black. He's running for President, for God's sake. It's the Left who has been racist by agonising about whether he is black enough. Is he authentic enough? Does he have a civil rights record? For me he's a liberal. That is reason enough to oppose him.

...Man-made global warming is a 100 per cent, full-fledged, undeniable hoax,...it's not even arguable in terms of science.

...We don't have the power to make cold weather warm. We can't make warm weather cold. We can't produce rain clouds. We can't steer hurricanes, we can't produce diddly squat and the idea that only advanced democracies are doing this with their automobiles is absurd.

Global warming is a religion. It has what all religions have which is faith, because no one can prove their religion. It has a Garden of Eden element, destruction brought by humanity then redemption for our sins by paying higher taxes and getting rid of our cars and planes.

...I hate people who feel rather than think. Most people feel they don't matter. When they are told they can save the planet, well, that gives their lives meaning. These stupid ribbons – breast cancer, Aids awareness, they say – 'I care more than you.'"

-- El Rushbo, echoing a major theme of TMR, while talking to London's Telegraph.

"Echoing a major theme" my ass - that is the theme - and if it's yours as well, and you won't be pushed around about it, then you're living your life with:

My Point Exactly, Big Mouth

The Big Bang (Part IV: The Halloween Edition)

"This, I thought, is crazy. If true, it is evil. But surely it is too crazy; it implies too gross a violation of ordinary human behavior, to be true. If it was true, there was something totalitarian there, something like the atmosphere of a Stalinist show-trial, the demand that privacy and dignity be ripped away to appease,...apparent emotional derangement,.."

- Hal G.P. Colebatch, in The Spectator, commenting on the public displays of emotional blackmail during Princess Diana's death.

(I'm only using the quote, above, as a launching-off point because it captures, perfectly, what I thought about the occult - and the behavior of it's practitioners - as I slowly discovered the metaphysical underpinnings of my wife, Karine Brunck, being taken advantage of by Robert Wohlfahrt, Wissimbourg, France's homeopathic village quack who had just euthanized her mother, less than a month before:)

[Segments I, II, and III, can be found here, here, and here.]

Well, it's Halloween, a day that will never be the same for me, because it means it was three years ago, today, that I first heard the name "Robert Wohlfahrt" and - for the rest of my life - this man's "beliefs" and actions will haunt me daily.

I found the "homeopath's" name on my mother-in-law's death certificate, only knowing my ex-wife, Karine Anne Brunck, had been sleeping with a man named "Robert". She had come back to America, after burying her mother, and then claimed she to had run back to Wissembourg, France after informing me she and "Robert" had "mystical powers" and they were, both, "students of the occult". (Spooky, huh?) I didn't know what to make of any of it.

Wohlfahrt means "Welfare" in German, but "Wolf Heart" in English, so when I first saw the name I just stood there - stunned - taking it in, holding my mother-in-law's death certificate in one hand and a huge new cell phone bill in the other, madly putting two-and-two together after a frantic period of in-house detective work; trying to sort out what had happened to my wife. "She's sleeping with the doctor - who euthanized her mother?" It was just too much - and too morbidly creepy - for my mind to comprehend: some self-proclaimed Mr. Amazing, with a wolf heart, did not have our welfare in mind at all.

From the moment Karine had returned from France, after she had been away for six months caring for her mother, she had been behaving strangely. Our greeting at the airport was stiff and overly-formal. She told me it was "culture shock", which I understood, having stayed in Wissembourg and returned to America to see a grimy, and sometimes threatening, San Francisco with new eyes.

Karine was nervous, and fidgety, and demanded not to greet any of our friends who were excited to see her after so much time. I chased them all away with half-hearted apologies. We then made small talk, with Karine telling me about the funeral and the doctor, who she described merely as "nice".

Sex that night was awful. Since I didn't know she had just had sex with Robert hours before, I also didn't know how to interpret Karine's awkward responses, and blamed myself for what was a less-than-stellar performance. This set the tone for the next four months we were together: Karine, acting in a cold and distant manner, and me wondering how long her "culture shock" would last and what I could do to bring us back together.

Karine's bizarre behavior started affecting everything, turning our home life very dark, like the atmosphere in the movie, The Exorcist. She'd stay away from the house for almost entire days, only to return and glower at me. I found her masturbating constantly - in the bathtub, the bed, and even the kitchen.

At the time, I had been working as music director for a wonderful internet music start-up, Better Propaganda.com, and trading stocks (successfully) online, but with such a weirdly gloom-and-doom scenario at home, I couldn't seriously focus on either and my music work suffered - and I started losing money on trades at a rapid pace.

As I mentioned (in The Big Bang, Part I) Karine took to wearing headphones at home, intently listening to a silly NewAge radio program about angels, while wearing me down with a hate stare. I became seriously concerned for the state of her mind. Wasn't her head-strong belief in NewAge supposed to be so peace, love, and happiness could be brought into the world? If so, it certainly wasn't working for us. My wife had become an evil bitch.

After months of this, I was happy when her best friend, Nadia Eisen, had arrived from Luxembourg. Nadia and I had always gotten along, and though she suffered from Crohn's disease (which would leave farts floating around the house that could peel paint off the walls, and forced me to shoo some visitors away with lame excuses) I always looked forward to Nadia's visits, because they always featured the three of us together, laughing, eating, and drinking around our table like family.

But it wasn't like that this time. This time, Karine and Nadia were always whispering in French, conspirators with a secret they would not divulge. They watched me closely, like I was an animal in the zoo, and arranged weekend trips away without inviting me along.

Nadia's presence, accompanied as it was by her nuclear bomb excretions, just made a an already unsteady situation much, much worse. And when it was time for her to leave - as I happily drove her to the airport - she did what struck me as the most crazy thing: she started confessing how lonely she was since she broke up with her last boyfriend, and looking at me expectantly.

I wanted nothing to do with Nadia sexually. I had met her former boyfriend, and (even though we didn't agree politically) I thought he was a really nice guy she had ridiculed for nothing - because she didn't think he was "exciting" enough; not enough of a go-getter or a risk-taker, when the man was nice, smart, extremely kind to her, had a really good job, an apartment, and a wonderful house he loaned to Karine, Nadia, and I when we visited. He was even able to travel through his work. I thought, since he didn't find Nadia's "master blasters" overly-offensive, she should have felt lucky to have him but no - she decided he was a "loser" for not being willing to jump through her hoops of selfishness. Anyway, when Nadia made her sly overtures - which I now regard as her testing my fidelity in light of what Karine had done - I was repulsed, wanted her out of my car, and back on a plane to Europe.

After Karine's lies stacked up to the breaking point and The Big Bang occured, we had such a terrible fight that our friend and neighbor, Lloyd, came over and, concerned, told Karine to go to his wife while he stayed with me. Shaking his head, he listened to Karine's panting confession of an affair on that horrible Doti Boon "psychic" tape with me, watched me cry, scream, and make terrible animal-like sounds until, basically, I became so exhausted I passed out.

I woke up screaming, my throat raw, from doing so even in my sleep. That first horrible night, three years ago, started a pattern that continues to this day: I start to gain conscienceness, reach over to pull my wife to me, and once I realize she's not there, I wake up not knowing where I am. Then reality hits me with a palpable force, and in order to go on, I respond to it like I'm in the jungle with a machete: I've just got to keep hacking away - keep moving forward - tear apart all her bullshit until I reach a clearing. Until I understand the madness loving her had me trapped in.

On the day after our fight, I jumped out of bed and immediately called Lloyd's, asking if Karine was still at his house. He said yes and put her on the phone, but our conversation kept quickly descending into open warfare. It was like she only had three settings now: lie, deny, or defiance, and I wasn't having any of it.

Knowing Karine had been lying to me already, I asked Lloyd to mediate for us, and listened as Karine threw out one lame excuse after another - lame excuses for a wife, in a 20 year marriage, trying to explain how she could take off her clothes and have sex with another man. She was saying things like it was my job. But she had pushed me to take the job at Better Propaganda.com, saying she thought it would be good for me. "You told me to take it!" I yelled incredulously.

We went on like that for about half an hour: Karine, studiously avoiding (in front of Lloyd) any mention of the delusional mental framework she had told me she and Robert shared, throwing out one diversionary issue after another that I batted down with the facts and evidence of our lives. With Lloyd mediating, it soon became clear that Karine wasn't trying to divulge the whole truth, so, rather than admit anything more, she bolted for the door, and to our car, and disappeared.

For me, the confusion and horror - and the terrifying screams from the night before - returned with a frightening power. I grew up as a foster child, so, as an adult, she alone was the only real family that I loved, and though it happened many times when I was a child, I wasn't prepared to unexpectantly face my world coming apart again. My wife may have been loony, but damn it she was my loon, and I hadn't ever considered how I'd go through life without her. Wasn't that what our marriage was all about?

But now I had no idea where my wife was. I also didn't know if her mind was right. All I knew was she was planning on returning to France (because she had told me a series of lies about why she had bought a ticket) but I had no idea if she was leaving immediately.

I started frantically calling her girlfriends, each one by turn feigning ignorance or giving me the cold shoulder. I started getting paranoid: what was going on? And who all knew? Then I thought to call Nadia, because if anyone knew what was going on, it had to be her,....

O.K. - enough - this is hard stuff to write about, but it will be continued, because doing what's hard is the essence of:

Meditate On This Shit (And Lose Your Mind)

"Obama was set to spend the day on a campaign crush across the Midwest, with a quick stop home in Chicago to see his kids. He makes his first stop back where his run began, in Des Moines, Iowa, where he upset Hillary Rodham Clinton in the campaign's first contest."

— Mike Glover, unaware of the metaphysical implications of Obama's movement back to a NewAge "power spot", for My Way News.

Why's Barack going BACK to Iowa? He's clearly got Iowa locked up, so what's the point? Click here (and pay attention to the video you find there) to understand what's up with meditation, New Age, and politics.

Now, let's go back in time a little bit, to see how Obama chooses what may become our nation's new "friends" (all underlines are mine):

"Sen. Barack Obama drew his heartiest welcome of a two-day swing through Iowa in the state's capital of inner peace.

To the frustration of the cameramen in the Fairfield town square, Obama delivered his remarks facing east, with the setting sun behind him blotting out their shots. [He's willing to frustrate the cameras? A guy running for president? - TMR]

But here, there’s a power even higher than the television networks: Obama had positioned himself in alignment with the rotation of the earth, in accordance with the teachings of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose followers moved en masse to this small Iowa city more than 30 years ago.

The Maharishi’s transcendental meditators, along with vacationing pilgrims from the East Coast, turned out in large numbers in the town’s traditional green square to hear the Illinois senator deliver his stump speech on the night of July 3 — more people, Fairfield’s sheriff said, than had come out to greet a sitting president.

"I saw him and I thought, ‘Oh my god, this is somebody who could lead us into a new era,’” said Nancy Watkins, an international student adviser at the Maharishi University of Management.

The meditators cheered Obama heartily — not at his occasional gestures toward political red meat, but at the lines that sometimes leave other audiences in silence.

They were responding to the senator’s call for national renewal that, though perhaps more Christian than New Age in concept, fit comfortably into a town square hemmed by shops with names like “Revelations” and the “Healthy Inspiration.”

— Ben Smith, who almost "got" it, writing for Politico.com.

Feeling "Zen" yet? Me too - but that's just a natural state for:

Tie Your Mother Down (Or Just Erica Jong)

"The record shows that voting machines in America are rigged."

"My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can't cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves."

"My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium."

"...If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it's not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets."

"Bush has transformed America into a police state, from torture to the imprisonment of reporters, to the Patriot Act."

— Erica Jong, the author of "Fear of Flying", speaking to an Italian blogger and publicly revealing a breathtaking display of the insanity a large segment of Boomers are now famous for passing along, in The New York Observer.

I'm posting this so people can see the kinds of things Boomers say to me all-the-time - constantly projecting a dark Left-wing nuttiness that (because of the Baby Boom's over-whelming numbers) can make me wonder about the safety of the nation - and sleep with some kind of protection nearby.

These Boomers are out of their fucking minds, and there's apparently no way to stop their self-feeding nightmares. They just insist their delusions are the way it is, and then go back to their comfortable lives of wine and cheese parties, without acknowledging any cognitive dissonance at all. Not only that but, if anyone challenges them on it, they'll immediately fly into a rage to enforce their "perspective".

They get especially angry at me because (of course - guilt trip alert:) they're feeling this way, and spewing this nonsense, on my behalf - because (guess what?) I'm black! And, as we all know, I suffer under a constant barrage of racism that's assaulting me, on a minute-by-minute basis, under President Bush's rule. An assertion that, if you think about it, is somehow racist in itself. (BTW - big shout out to Michael Amos: way to oppress me, man!)

I see the situation, and these Boomers, this way: they are the surviving dregs of the 60's, and since they've had about 40 years to let their mad hippie delusions fester, little by little - as they die off - things will get better. The rest of us have got to just hang in there, watching our backs, and protecting the republic until the fever passes (or they do) or they get too old to be truly harmful to anyone but themselves.

It's either that or wait for them to do something really stupid that forces the entire nation into, somehow, re-restraining 'em - through some kind of Chicago '68 action - so (since the rest of us just want to get on with our lives while, somehow, sharing the same space) they will once again get the message - loud and clear - that the rabid dog routine can't be tolerated any longer.

I don't know. That was already tried 40 years ago and, clearly, it didn't take.

Anyway, there it is: another decent demonstration of the craziness that regularly inflicts itself on my life, care of Erica Jong. It attacks all of our lives, really. It's what's ruining our culture, and our country, too.

And while I want everyone to know I'm trying to be as sympathetic to their mental problem as I can - and you should be too - the only reaction that's good for all involved is:

It's Her Party (And She'll Cry If She's Made To)

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Just 5 days before the election, at 3a.m. on October 30th, all of the front windows of the Cindy Sheehan for Congress campaign offices were shattered. Although staffers had been in the office less than an hour earlier, no one was in the building at the time of the incident. No one was hurt and there were no witnesses. Cindy Sheehan is a candidate for Congress in California's 8th Congressional District race against incumbent Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

"It seems to have been a calculated intimidation tactic," said Tiffany Burns, the Cindy for Congress campaign manager. "One of our computers was stolen, but no other property was taken from our offices and no surrounding buildings were targeted. Clearly they wanted to both frighten us and to gather information." Total damage to the campaign office is currently estimated at more than $5,000.

The Cindy for Congress campaign recently chronicled a series of unusual events, including other threats of violence, in a statement issued on October 13th. In that statement, Cindy Sheehan noted "[t]he past few weeks have been a little strange at Cindy for Congress [...] the things that have been happening could just be coincidences, or a run of bad luck, but the climate for the possibility of campaign hanky-panky certainly exists."

Campaign staffers also note each incident, including today's early morning incident, has followed closely on the heels of a confrontation with Cindy Sheehan's opponent Nancy Pelosi. This morning's incident occurred after an on-air confrontation between the two candidates on KQED's public affairs program Forum with Michael Krasny on Wednesday morning.

"Each time we confront her, each time we ask her for a debate, each time we gain ground in the polls, something horrible happens," said Burns. "Once or twice might be a coincidence, but such a consistent correlation is hard to ignore."

— Breitbart.com

Awww, don't cry Cindy. What your headquarters needs is "protection" - and I know exactly where you can get it:

Nov. 5th: They're Selling Flowers At Airports

The morning after the election, the disappointment will begin to settle upon the Obama crowd. Defeat -- by now unthinkable to the devotees -- will bring heartbreak. Victory will steadily deliver the sobering verdict that our troubles won't be solved by a leader's magic.

— Fouad Ajami, in an important piece called "Obama and the Politics of Crowds", for the Wall Street Journal.

Listen to me - shave your head, pierce your nose, start wearing a sarong - and all your worldly possessions? They go to:

The Hokey-Pokey (That's What It's All About)

DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be "humiliated," without endorsing a party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to an Internet video posting.

"O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him," Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.

— Reuters

US election: If Iraqis could vote it would be for McCain

— Breitbart.com

So what does this tell you? It should tell you there's something to the perspective of:

Uh-Oh: Gia's Gone Goofy - Again!!!

"Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. However, since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, it is now believed this may be part of a natural cycle in mother nature - and not the direct result of man's contributions."

— Rick C. Hodgin, reporting more evidence the current science community has merely bought into the goofy cultish bullshit of hair-brained hippies of the '70s, for TG Daily.

Don't believe the hype - don't believe in anything - think along with:

The Great Presidential Election Of 2008 Is Now Officially U.F.O.: Undeniably Factually Over!!!

"WASHINGTON, DC - In a shocking reversal, the Alien has switched his endorsement from Barack Obama to John McCain.

With major implications for the U.S. presidential election, political kingmaker the Alien has changed his endorsement amid furor. Both political camps are buzzing about the implications, as the Alien has correctly predicted the winning president in every election for the past 28 years."

— Reginald Cunningham III, on the most important political endorsement of the campaign season, in the Weekly World News.

Obama Couldn't Work At The White House

"The One" Now Equals "The Gun"

Funny, what all the meanings of "change" can be, isn't it? It can mean merely something different and nice, but it can also stand for "disaster", or "catastrophe", or "irrational behavior". You know, like when you say, "Have you seen Bob? He's changed - and not for the better."

That's the problem when people "believe" vague pronouncements will bring "change" - they're vague words - and, thus, remain open to interpretation. To some, "change" means a time to pursue peace, and to others it means it's time to buy a gun - especially if the change-agent comes-a-callin' with racists, radicals, socialists, terrorists, and criminals - and the people who want peace are, like zombies, willing to ignore all that. But nobody else can. They're not part of the cult.

This blog has been dedicated to exposing the dangers of cults. Many times they end in death, and I've heard more than my share of Obama supporters saying they want to see a Civil War (something I haven't heard even one of my conservative friends say) so, if one pops off, I'll know why and who's to blame. The tragedy will be that it'll be because they "believe" it'll bring about "change", but, as I said, I don't think they understand what those words can mean.

One meaning is they can turn back now.

Give a little support to:

Wake Up, America: Bring The Noise!

"There are,...long-term reasons to believe the United States will,...weather the current storm. We are a transparent society that blares out problems, affixes blame and then fights publicly over solutions. Japan's real estate meltdown of the 1990s took years to correct, given the emphasis on secrecy and shame within Japanese financial circles.

The 50 states of a federal United States -- some of them individually among the world's top 20 economies -- are also far better integrated than the 27 countries of the European Union. American banks are subject to uniform national policy and are forced to act in concert. In contrast, British, French and German lending institutions are often unwilling to bail out other countries, and compete with each other to attract scarce capital in times of crisis.

The United States military remains far stronger -- and more battle-hardened -- than the rest of the world's armed forces combined. Rogue nations and terrorists try to take advantage of economic uncertainty, but America remains the best-defended democracy in the world.

The current financial crisis has startled America from a hypnotic trance of self-indulgence and irresponsibility. But as we return to American fundamentals, we may discover that our political, social and economic system -- despite all the current election-cycle hysteria -- is still by far the most resilient in the world.

How odd that it took a financial catastrophe to remind us of that."

— Victor Davis Hanson, putting our future in perspective - if we use our heads, get back to basics, forget Obama, and decide to do the right thing - which is called Real Clear Politics.

Pay attention to the message we're sending you - like this one right here:

Go With A Winner: Turn To The Macho Response

"To whom do we turn for guidance in our modern world? Teachers have had their scope limited by the prevailing fashions of education. Artists have become more appreciated for scandal than for important revelations about our lives. Writers are entertainers, provocateurs or- if truly serious - more or less ignored. The Church speaks with a broken voice. Politicians are more guided by polls than by vision. We have disembowelled our oracles. Anybody who claims to have something to say is immediately suspect."

— Ben Okri, the Booker Prize-winning novelist, trying (with limited success) to get to the nub of the problem, in the Times Online.

Knock the nonsense down to the mat with:

Change+Problem+?=Obama?

Two leading infomercial stars agree: Barack Obama's half-hour self-promotion last night was a flop.

"I don't see enough smiling. Doom and gloom totally," said Anthony Sullivan, one of the biggest names in infomercial history.

"I feel depressed right now," added Sullivan, an Englishman famous for his infomercials touting the Swivel Sweeper and Smart Chopper. The only thing saving Obama, Sullivan said, was when the candidate appeared live at the end speaking at a rally in Florida.

"I think it needed it. I was about to throw myself through a window because it was depressing," Sullivan said.

He and AJ Khubani, who has produced infomercials for 25 years, said Obama also fell short of offering solutions to the dire problems he laid out.

"I didn't see a payoff. Classic infomercial is you show the before and you show the after. I didn't see the music or the crashing waves of the Pacific," Sullivan said.

He joked the producer "needs a spanking" for lacking optimism.

Khubani said: "Every infomercial lays out common problems, whether it's a flabby belly or acne, and then it gives a solution. In this case the solution is Obama."

But Obama didn't pitch the product - himself - convincingly enough, he argued.

"We always spend much more time on the solution than the problem and he did the opposite," Khubani added.

— Sally Goldenberg, on the candidate's warm-up set for his appearance on The Daily Show, in The New York Post

This Is What They'll Do To You

A state agency has revealed that its checks of computer systems for potential information on "Joe the Plumber" were more extensive than it first acknowledged.

Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.

The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.

Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.

Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said.

If state employees run checks on every person listed in newspaper stories as buying a business, "it must take a lot of people a lot of time to run these checks," he said. "Where do you draw the line?"

...Republican legislators have challenged Jones-Kelley's reason for checking on Wurzelbacher as "frightening" and flimsy.

Jones-Kelly also has denied any connections between the computer checks on Wurzelbacher and her support for Obama. She donated the maximum $2,500 this year to the Obama campaign....

— Randy Ludlow, showing the kind of "change" we'll get in the Age of Obama if we ask difficult questions, for the Columbus Dispatch

No, no, there's no connection at all,...except for the one everyone can see at:

Kaus Keeps His Head

Slate's quadrennial exercise proving that just because you're open about it doesn't mean it's not embarrassing is up. Slate is voting 55-1 for Obama over McCain, with one additional vote for Bob Barr. With those numbers, it's getting hard to agree with founder Michael Kinsley:

No doubt it is true that most journalists vote Democratic, just as most business executives (including most media owners) vote Republican, though neither tendency is as pronounced as their respective critics believe.

Not "as pronounced" as our "critics believe"? You mean Sarah Palin thought it would be 56-1? How much more pronounced could it get? ...

Memo to Don Graham: As long as we're going with the O by a 55-1 margin, why not drop the now-ludicrous MSM-style pretense of non-partisanship and reap the financial rewards of partisanship that available on the Web-- like, say, the Huffington Post? ...

Shocked, Shocked for Barack! The cheapest out if your'e a previously McCain-friendly pundit who wants to endorse Obama is to say you like McCain but can't vote for him because you're revolted by his campaign. It's an out elaborately developed by Joe Klein at Time, and it's an out Anne Applebaum takes in Tuesday's WaPo. Applebaum claims she's not reacting against McCain's "campaign" but rather to "institutional" deterioration in his "increasingly anti-intellectual, no longer even recognizably conservative" party. But all the examples she cites come from his campaign (Palin) or campaigning that's not even his (Sean Hannity's anti-Obama telecasts).. ...

The problem with the "I'm repulsed" argument is that while it's eminently respectable it's unserious. The campaign will be over soon. There is no reason to think McCain has actually changed what he wants to do on, say, immigration. Applebaum doesn't offer even a speculative argument as to why, with the election safely behind him, President McCain would have to truckle to his party's anti-amnesty contingent. That's because he wouldn't. He'd be much more likely to make immigration the basis for his first and perhaps only foray into bipartisanship--in effect, truckling to the pro-legalization forces. Nor has McCain "spent the past four months running away" from his longstanding immigration position. He's spent the past two months reasserting it.

I think Applebaum knows this. She's not a fool. If she really thinks that McCain's pre-campaign immigration policies--or his budget policies, or his torture policies--are right for the country, then she should be for McCain. Even if he's trying to win by running anti-Ayers ads. Even if his supporters "repulse" her. It's hard to believe that this repulsion isn't a convenient cover for some unstated, perhaps unconscious, pro-Obama imperative (or maybe simply for the imperative to come to a decision). ...

If you're looking for evidence of a "Bradley"-like effect--in which preelection polls can be wildly off--one place to look is the polling on Ward Connerly's Civil Rights Initiative in Michigan. According to Connerly (in answer to an email query)

Some polls had us losing by 10 points the weekend before the election. We won by 16.

Results here. ... It seems clear, in that case at least, voters told pollsters the respectable PC answer they thought pollsters wanted to hear. ... Barack Obama was one of those campaigning (in radio spots) for the respectable PC side that lost. ...

— Mickey Kaus, bringing a bit of reality to the campaign, for Slate Magazine