"It's just funny that three people I don't like from all over the spectrum have come out in favor of Clinton as VP. But even stopped clocks...etc. I kind of hope he doesn't surprise everybody and choose her, because if he does I'll have to eat my words and admit that his ego isn't quite as big as I thought it was. And I'll have to vote for him. Yuck."

This is somewhat of a pervasive theme that hasn't been addressed much - the newfound idea that the president has to cater to "me". Not what's best for the country, not what's best for the world, but what's best for "me".

The president has to be someone who "I" personally like, despite the fact that we're never going to have a personal relationship. They have to have place "my" interests first, despite the fact that my interests may not be the country's best interests. Their ego can't be too big for "my" taste, which I get to define.

In other words, more important than our domestic and foreign policy, our economy, our international standing, is whether "I" personally approve of the President.

The President has become a product that we consume, and we are defined by our personal tastes. Whether you favor Obama or McCain (or really, whether you favor or disfavor Obama) is as much a fashion choice as it is an ideological viewpoint. It's the natural progression of MySpace, blogging, YouTube, reality TV - everything that puts the "me" back in America.

It's just interesting - the elevation of people's personal opinions, which are mostly uninformed or underinformed, over what experts say, what studies show, and what the facts reveal.

I very much agree with your last post - the true genius of Rove was taking the strength of a candidate and turning it into a weakness. It would be wonderful if Obama could do this, but I think he's hampered by two factors:

1) McCain's biggest strength is untouchable. His POW status, which has morphed into "war hero" as legends tend to do, is utterly unassailable. He's almost Rove-proof.

2) Rove/McCain benefit from selling their schlock to a base that's gullible and unsophisticated to believe it, not to mention starving for any reason they can to justify and cover for the real reason they're anti-Obama. The one nobody likes to admit about themselves. Obama, on the other hand, has a base that won't get behind such facile and illogical two-steps, because they know it doesn't make sense. Republicans don't care if stuff makes sense - as long as it confirms their beliefs, it's good as gold.

You should see how often Rezko comes up in other message boards. It doesn't matter to these people that there's no "there" there with Rezko, or that it's been investigated to the molecular level with Obama coming out clean. His mere association with Tony Rezko, who was really just a political groupie and not some kind of power broker, is enough to send the anti-Obama set into a tizzy.

More really spoiled red meat to McCain's starving lions, who will eat anything.

Palin is the knockoff version of Hillary you buy in Chinatown for 8 bucks. And the thought that she'd be one stumble down the White House stairs away from being President is no laughing matter (except for the thought of McCain stumbling down the stairs).

Can you please point to something that shows us Hillary wanted to be VP? All this talk about Obama "snubbing" her seems to presuppose she would have even been interested in accepting the VP slot. Can you please provide a link to where she expresses interest in being the VP? If not, please shut up.

A more unqualified choice would have been impossible. Purely symbolic - absolutely no expertise on anything. A freaking creationist!

This is a desperation heave.

Apparently McCain is now drawing record crowds - he has tapped into the same thing Lou Pearlman did before he went to jail: Americans love fake, manufactured crap in a nice package.

Sarah Palin is Johnny Bravo - she fits the suit. And the suit is what the Right Wingnuts crave: an attractive, charismatic, hard talking, fundamentalist whack job who is being trained to lip sync and put on a big show.

Now she is huddled down in some bunker memorizing GOP talking points for her "interview" on Thursday. Palin the Candidate, like Britney Spears the Singer, is being created before our very eyes (just like mankind, right creationists!). Oh, the sad twisted irony. McCain goes around blasting Obama for his "celebrity" status, all while he creates his own "celebrity" running mate that has all the substance of Britney and Paris and all the other vapid blank slates he's compared to Obama.

Crazy time, indeed.

columbia, harvard law, grassroots organizer, state legislature, u.s. senate, winner of grueling primary, real ideas, real solutions ... yeah, total fake manufactured crap.

university of idaho, sportscaster, mayor of small bumblefuck town, 18 month governor of bumblefuck state, plucked out of a hat to be a running mate, shielded from the press, rejector of science, GOP parrot ... that's some real substance right there.

you make perfect sense.

i don't "misunderestimate" the power of palin - she actually scares the hell out of me. that's what my whole post was about - americans love simplistic, manufactured garbage in pretty packages.

palin the leader is a joke. however, palin the manufactured candidate, like backstreet boys the manufactured band, could be a tour de force with the shitheel american public.

Just goes to show you, you can pluck a pig out of nowhere and dress it up all nice and give it fashionable glasses and train it to say things that appeal to pig-lovers, but at the end of the day, that pig is still gonna wind up as bacon on someone's breakfast sandwich at McDonald's.

"I have no effing clue what I'm talking about."