It's not like Rinehart has crazy-eyes or anything...
-He stands by his lunacy-
Remember Brent Rinehart, the Oklahoma City County Commissioner who put out an insane screed with bad drawings to cover for his corruption charges?
Well, it turns out that some some people aren't too amused by his "comic." Despite mentioning that "[Oklahoma Attorney General] Drew Edmondson put Oklahoma on record to force the Boy Scots to accept homosexuals as scout leaders, a pedifile's dream come true," Rinehart denies any gay-bashing -- although I doubt if he could spell it.
"This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen," noted political science professor Keith Gaddie. "I've never seen a comic book with the phrase 'anal sodomy' in it before. ... He's pretty much grinding every ax he's got from his days in the county commission."
County Assessor Leonard Sullivan has an explanation for the whole thing; Rinehart's a frootloop. "I've really encouraged him on more than one occasion to get professional help," he said. "He really needs it." (Raw Story)
-Headline of the day-
"GOP senators scramble for lifeboats."
With things looking bleak for Republicans in November, the Senate GOP has come up with a typically Republican plan -- it's every man for himself.
According to the report, "Republican Senate leaders -- terrified by the prospect of losing five or more seats in November -- have freed their members to vote however they need to vote to get re-elected, even if that means bucking the president or the party’s leadership." The unspoken truth here is that the Republican party line is a loser this year and the best way to get re-elected is to stop being a Republican.
Seems to me they might've gotten around to avoiding voting for brainless bills and repeating GOP talking points a long time ago. It might be a little late to convince people that they're all "mavericks" at this point.
Still, you've got to hope that the few who survive will get used to thinking for themselves and not go back to the Republican Robot Factory to be retrofitted with their obedience chips.
A fella can dream... (Politico)
-Desperate times call for desperate attack ads-
The McCain campaign's new ad blaming Barack Obama has lit up the net with buzz. Unfortunately for McCain, none of that buzz is good. The problem? It's a bunch of horseshit.
"To anyone who cares about reality, the ad doesn’t make a lick of sense," says Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen. "McCain has to hope, desperately, that we’re all idiots."
But if you want to know just how bad and dishonest and idiotic the ad is, you have to turn to the gold-standard of political truth -- Annenberg Fact Check. They call the ad "absurd," "a tankfull of nonsense," and shoot down pretty much every assertion in the ad -- include an insane lie that Obama says "no to independence from foreign oil."
"[W]e suppose someone, somewhere, might be saying that," Annenberg says, "quietly, to themselves, in a small, soundproof room – but no major-party presidential candidate that we're aware of is doing so."
There's a term for that kind of dishonest argument. A straw man. Team McCain's only hope is to run against a Barack Obama who doesn't actually exist. The next McCain ad is expected to blame Barack Obama for stealing your morning paper and letting his dog take a crap in your yard. (FactCheck.org)
