Actually, I think this is a gift to the Democrats... If the Reps blow hurricane Gustav, they underline their incompetence. If they rise to the occasion this time, they simply underline their previous incompetence and remind everyone of their outrageously pathetic performance during Katrina. Whatever we see of damage to N.O. from Gustav just screams, remember Katrina, remember Katrina, remember Katrina...

Meanwhile, if Gustav truly slows down and wreaks havoc for two or three days in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana ((too bad it's not likely to touch the Bush (non)ranch near Crawford)), it steals all the media attention from the RNC. Result: no convention bump (because there will be no convention attention). Furthermore, McSame/Pale-im(itation) will be under immense pressure to address uncomfortable issues such as, how will they assure the protection of the poor during natural disasters, how will they prevent crony no-bid contracts (such as the one given to a Jeb Bush-connected company for new drainage pumps for N.O. which are badly designed and built and seem quite likely to fail) from further harming our infrastructure and whether global climate change helped feed Gustav.

That being said, I'll be praying for the health and well being of all those on the Gulf Coast who are likely to suffer damages to their property, health, well-being and livelihood from Gustav (and perhaps the two hurricanes that seem likely to follow him).

(The daughter and future son-in-law, I mean.) They're in a very difficult situation as it is without the poking, prodding and judgmental folks looking for an angle sharp enough to poke McCain/Pale-imitation with. The reality is, for those who would be ripping apart someone living in poverty, especially if they were not white enough, not to mention the child of any Democratic political figure, and using all sorts of nasty words to label such behavior and the parents they would see as obviously responsible for it, and this difference in response absolutely includes the corporate-owned MSM,

It

Doesn't

Count if

You're a

Republican.

IDCYR heals all wounds and covers over all rank hypocrisy. There would be a massively different reaction if this had been Chelsey Clinton, but somehow, it would have been just a "youthful indiscretion" of this had been one of the Bush twins.

But regardless of all that, there are plenty of other reasons to challenge and question the Republican ticket, let's use them and leave these kids alone.

Right on! Right on! Right on! or should that be "Write on!"

The folks who cut taxes down to nearly nothing for all the ways the top 5% make their money (mostly playing games with other people's money and playing middle men for stuff made by real people and sold to real people neither of which got a square deal), have padded their own pockets and bank accounts with money they borrowed from all of our grandchildren's piggy banks.

Somewhere down the road, the next generations are going to hate us for falling for the same old distraction/bait and switch routine. Look over there! It's abortion, gay marriage, and islamofascism! Meanwhile they high tailed it out the back door with our financial future.

Because it helps reveal hypocrisy. The Hard Right made such a huge deal about Obama's being responsible for everything Jeremiah Wright (his now-former pastor) ever said, even in sermons where Obama was provably absent that the MSM, not to mention the Israel first, U.S. second neocons, including Liberman can hardly let this slide without demanding that Palin repudiate everything this visiting pastor ever said ANYWHERE, condemn the "Jews for Jesus" organization and quit the church where she heard him preach. Anything less from her... anything less from the mainstream media, as well, reveals rampant hypocrisy, not for the Hard Right who probably agree with this sentiment, but to those in the middle who are still trying to decide who Sarah Palin is and trying to sort out what role the MSM is playing in this election. Of course we next need to get Larry Kroon on the National Press Club so he can really lay out what he and the Jews for Jesus believe.

OK... I'm waiting for the Democratic commercial laying out all the parallels between Palin and Bush - governor of an oil producing state who thinks drilling for more oil will turn the clock back to 1950's prices, rugged individualist hunter, parent of kids who have made some challenging choices in their lives, likable in a back yard barbecue sort of way, but we've already seen what we get when we elect this type of personality - morphing Palin into one of the numerous smirking pictures of the chimperor-in-chief. Of course there are enough question-inspiring parallels to fill a mini-series, but since the hard religious right is already praying for McCain's election and subsequent demise so Palin can become president, let's do what the Republicans seem to be doing... run against Palin - ignore McCain and remind everyone that Ms. Pit Bull with lipstick is a total Bush clone with Cheney tendencies - nothing but the worst of Bush (a stubborn, ignorant, incurious nature) and Cheney (strong fascist/authoritarian tendencies) in drag.