Of Moose and women, of fish and men

Well, I have been away from my blog for a week, and the campaign is unrecognizable.

Last week, we were talking lipstick on pigs, sex education to kindergartners, sexist persecution, etc., etc.

Since last week, capitalist deregulations have entailed apocalyptic disasters on the market, and that revealed a lot about the candidates.

With the current major financial crisis, the McCain campaign cannot decently continue launching attacks based on Barack's lipstick on a pig comment. Even by Republican standards, that would be shockingly cynical. Besides, Barack talks about the economy this week. In the wake of the bailouts of Lehman Bros. and AIG and of the erratic course of the Dow Jones, he actually tries to address the issues. Oh, he probably won't do miracles, but he is making a lot of sense especially when he claims that the Republican philosophy of economics is at least partly responsible for what is happening.
So John has to address the issues too. And he is trying. He has even admitted in a radio interview that No, Barack Obama did not call Sarah Palin a pig. Good. A bit late, but good. That's a start away from the swiftboating of the previous weeks. For my numerous French readers who would not be familiar with swiftboat campaigning, the expression comes from the 2004 election during which an allegedly independent group of Vietnam veterans broadcast an ad claiming that Kerry -- who claimed he had been part of a heroic swift boat company in Nam -- had not really been there. These were pure lies, and Kerry lost. He had been swiftboated.

Well, that is what the McCain campaign had been doing before the financial crisis and before Karl Rove -- yes, the vicious and cynical Karl Rove, King of Swiftboating who sole-handedly put Bush in the White House twice -- that very same Karl Rove said on Fox News -- yes, Fox News, aka Fixed News, this Conservative nest of hard-hitting journalists who interview Sarah Palin's hairdresser to find out how hard Sarah works when she is waiting her turn at the salon, without complaining, just waiting patiently like all of us -- that McCain ads had not really past the 100%-true test.

Mind-blowing.

Anyway, John is also trying to talk about the economy now. And it is not pretty. The thing is, he does not look very confident when he talks about the economy. He stutters that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" on the very day the Dow Jones plunges. And you can almost see big drops of sweat on his temples. And his body language is so awkward when he is asked to explain and when he says he meant by "fundamentals" the American workers, "the best workers in the world," and so when Barack criticizes him for this comment about the fundementals of the economy, well, he really criticizes the American workers.
And you can't believe he just said that. But then, if you haven't broken your TV, you observe him for one more second and you realize that he does not believe he just said that either. He is at a loss. He does not know what to do. He is leading a smear campaign because that is what Republicans do, that's all, but he knows he should be better.
But he has a huge problem. He cannot defend any economic policy, because the Republican economic policy is the cause of the current mess. So, what can he do? Give up the fight before Election Day.
John is a moose at bay.

Talking about moose, what about Sarah? Well, she has given some interviews finally. With journalists that she picked. And she also looks very much like she does not know what she is talking about, although this comes less as a surprise. She was asked what she though of the Bush doctrine. Well, she thought nothing, because she did not know what the Bush doctrine was.
I am not being elitist here, I think it is okay for anyone of us not to know what the Bush doctrine is -- I knew only because I mentioned it in one of my classes -- but when you run for Vice President of the US, I think it is a clear, red-alert sign that you are not fit for the job when you don't know that the Bush doctrine, the doctrine that is running your country, is about preemptive strikes on countries deemed rogue countries.

She keeps claiming that she did not blink when she was asked to be on the ticket, that she would not blink in case of a new terrorist attack. She would not blink. What does it mean not to blink? Does it show courage or dumb foolhardiness? I think that the President and the Vice-President of the most powerful country in the world should blink a lot, and I think Bush and Cheney should have blinked a bit more six years ago.
Blink, baby, blink.

Oh boy, there is so much more to say about this past week.

Todd, Sarah's husband has been subpoenaed in the context of allegations that Sarah might have abused her power in having her brother-in-law fired.
Todd refused to comply with the subpoena.
The media have just started investigating why some people in Alaska call Todd the shadow governor. Apparently, he plays a big role in his wife's governing. Official state email are copied to him and he attends official meetings.

John said that more offshore drilling would be environmentally good because the fish love those rigs, there are a lot of fish around the rigs, so drilling would be good not only for our cars but for our meals too.
This is not a joke.
A few weeks ago, a Republican surrogate had claimed that Sarah's pipeline in Alaska was a good thing environmentally speaking because the caribou and the moose come huddling against the warm pipeline.

I thought I had heard the most stupid things ever in the 2007 French electoral campaign. Well, I was wrong.