On Pull-Strings and Zeros...

I, like many Americans, have been paying close attention to this campaign and also our economic clusterf$%k. I admit I have very few words to describe how I feel about it all... Perhaps this sums it up nicely:

WTF!?!?!

Oh my God... where to begin? First of all, Palin and McCain: has our country ever had a more absurd, clueless, ridiculous and whacked presidential ticket? Ever?

When the McCain campaign announced Palin (who?) as his VP pick and I watched that intitial first appearance of the two, it seemed to me that McCain was pretty much trying not to stare at her butt and he smacked of some cute little nursing home womanizer who--at any moment--would reach out and get his hand slapped before talking about his weather-predicting gout. Something about the two of them standing together just looked seriously wrong. It was as if her presence and contrast shrunk him, aged him, and rendered him a goofy caricature of his former self. I thought, Oh Man, this is just going to be a disaster.

Then I watched her convention speech and found myself a bit surprised. She did a fairly good job (for a snarky wench), I'd say, and had me wondering if maybe McCain knew what he was doing.

Then I saw the Gibson interview... the Hannity interview and a slice of the Couric interview...

OMG

I hadn't quite anticipated just how clueless Palin really is. Now, politicians give pat answers and cleverly worm their way around difficult questions...we're used to that. Palin, on the other hand, behaves as if she's been programed with a script. It's...it's as if she's one of those dolls with the pull-cord on her back and a limited menu of statements that she blurts out of her fixed vacant smile whether they match the interview question or not.

Occasionally, she's like one of those androids on Star Trek (old school) who get flummoxed and smokey-eared when asked a paradoxical question (except the questions she's being asked are not paradoxical...but rather simple, really).

This person is somehow ready to be "a heartbeat away from the presidency"??? Really??? The woman can't even answer to Katie Couric without becoming a pile of silly goo. Oh, honey, your ego is writing checks your brain can't cash.

The bottom line is that Palin is in way over her head. She's been isolated in a culture that does not represent most of America, her education is weak, and while she can snap at people like a Pomeranian she has no bite. Palin is small potatoes and no where near ready to lead our country. I won't even get into how freaky it would be to have the leader of the free world believe that "the end of days" is a good thing... she'd run our world into ruin happily if it meant a faster track to rapture. I'm frankly terrified for what her possible presidency would mean for the world as we know it.

So, OK... Yikes.

Then we have this "financial crisis." Of course, no actual useful information is given to the American people about what's going on. We get the rough impression that the sky is falling due to the mortgage debacle (Question: Who's idea was it to issue impossible mortgages to people who couldn't ultimately afford them???? Answer: The rich bastards who will profit from our tax dollars and be kept floating in their affluence even as the middle class are becoming unemployed, homeless, and forever indebted in order to save the world...)

Is it just me, or was the mortgage thing ultimately just a pyramid scheme? I mean, really. And now the rest of us get to shoulder the burden of helping...um... who, exactly? "The economy"? Stupid, overextended home-buyers? Greedy, predatory lenders? Rich CEOs who still feel they're entitled to their bonuses?

I know... why don't we let those banks fail and give 700,000,000,000 to the American taxpayers? I figure that's roughly $5,000 per taxpayer. Then we'll buy stuff, thus stimulating the economy... OK, OK... I know, I know... silly me. Instead, lets just bail out the greedy f#%krs so they can live to see another day of profit, plan for their company-paid vacations, and hunt for their next trophy wife. It's on me.

Funny... you can bet they'll do plenty of lay-offs... They'll lay off the folks making 24-50k who have not had the luxury of saving millions of dollars in their bank accounts, who do not own 8 houses, and who will have to go without health care (or pay $500 a month for their COBRA insurance...with their unemployment insurance...uh...yeah). Yay. Do you think those people will see a dime of the 700,000,000,000? Ah, well, see they'll benefit because the economy will improve and the executives who f%#d up in the first place will buy stuff, thus stimulating the economy...

Wait... I think that made Palin's ears smoke.