What Stood Out This Week - 7/13-7/19

I can't believe you haven't gone to Iraq! You're pandering to voters by going to Iraq! Stop hitting yourself! So let's see What Stood Out This Week...

The Republican

Remember Phil Gramm, that guy who called us whiners? He's a resigner. He also produced soft-core porn films, but that's totally irrelevant to the party of family values and, of course, the election.

A term that I'm becoming more aware of in this campaign is "surrogate." It seems to be a way for both campaigns to disavow campaign missteps. "No one listens to surrogates," "That surrogate doesn't speak for our campaign." "That surrogate has to give us the baby." Phil Gramm was a surrogate, you see.

Another surrogate says that the Muslims are going to kill us all, so that's nice.

John McCain spent a good chunk of his week going after minority voters, speaking in front of the NAACP and a Latino group whose acronym I can't remember. I can't help but feel that McCain's going after this group of voters for the same reason Obama's campaigning in, say, Texas: it makes one's opponent put resources into getting the "safe" votes. Oh, and Obama spoke in front of them, too.

And then McCain's bold economic solution for the week was to extend the gas tax holiday for a few more months. This is right up there with balancing the budget via victory in Iraq for clear economic thinking.

The Democrat

Barack Obama's making his plans for a world tour. He's pulling a John F. Kennedy and speaking in front of the throngs of Germans, hopefully to tell them that he's some sort of jelly donut to massive applause.

Polls are up and down for Barack, depending on who you ask, when, and where. Sometimes he's leading and sometimes it's a dead heat with McCain. One poll stood out this week: Obama's supporters are more enthusiastic about their candidate than McCain supporters. So the motivation to actually get out and vote leans Obama.

This Week's Argument

John McCain's been hammering Obama for a little while about his lack of visits to Iraq. "How can he expect to lead if he's never been on the ground in Iraq?" Because Iraq visits from political leaders tend to be realistic presentations of what the war is really like for the everyday people of Iraq and the everyday soldiers of the United States.

So now that Barack's planning a trip, McCain says Barack's pandering for votes. What a dick. You can't have it both ways, you big jerk. And anyway, what's this about you missing every vote on Afghanistan in the past two years?

When Barack is actually going is relatively secret for security reasons, but McCain said that he'd be arriving in Iraq this weekend. Now, if he's guessing and he guessed right, McCain's just insensitive. But if he knew the plans and shared that, he's a total Dickhead that just created a security nightmare for the Obama campaign. Either way, shame on you, John McCain.

Barack arrived in Afghanistan this morning, the country John McCain's forgotten about and, if we want to buy into the right-wing framing of the argument, the origin of our "war on terror."

It astounds me that somehow the Republican Party is the party of national security. They've really fucked everything up in big bad ways.

This Stood Out so much this week you've probably already seen it, but if you haven't it will amuse. JibJab's at it again with their latest campaign spoof, and I think it includes the best Obama parody I've seen...



And that's What Stood Out This Week.