ADAM MCKAY ON THE HUFFINGTON POST: Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate.
We’re coming off the worst eight years in our country’s history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R’s have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we’re going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That’s not odd as a difference of opinion, that’s logically and mathematically queer.
It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins. I know what you’re going to say ” But I won twelve hundred dollars last year in Atlantic City!” Of course there are victories. The odds aren’t tilted crazy, but there is a 51%-49% advantage. And in the long run, the house has to win. The house will win.
So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It’s the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on…I’m not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox…I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that’s the 51% advantage.
Think this is some opinion being wryly posited to titillate other bloggers and inspire dialogue with Tucker Carlson or Gore Vidal? Fuck that. Four corporations own all the TV channels. All of them. If they don’t get ratings they get canceled or fired. All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear. Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate. The end. MORE
[Adam McKay wrote and directed Anchorman and Talladega Nights. He’s currently finishing his newest movie Step Brothers. McKay also co-founded the website Funny or Die with Will Ferrell and Chris Henchy. Adam wrote for Saturday Night Live in the nineties and was head writer for three years.]
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT:
Palin: A political woman and ‘every man’s fantasy’
Despite Sarah Palin’s tight French twist, rimless yet expensive eyewear, and drab straight skirts, both Democrats and Republicans agree the conservative vice-presidential candidate is a looker. “I find her very attractive, bubbly, and with a definite sex appeal to her,” said Marathon Grill owner and Democrat Cary Borish.
Palin may be downplaying her prettiness — a February article in Vogue said she once told a reporter that she was trying to be “as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses” — but it’s not working.
Then again, in 2008, why should it have to? MORE
WASHINGTON POST: John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said the campaign is entering a stage in which skirmishes over the facts are less important than the dominant themes that are forming voters’ opinions of the candidates. “The more the New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there’s a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she’s new, she’s popular in Alaska and she is an insurgent,” Feehery said. “As long as those are out there, these little facts don’t really matter.”
For now, there appears to be little political reason to back down. A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken Sept. 5 to Sept. 7 found that 51 percent of voters think Obama would raise their taxes, even though his plan would actually cut taxes for the overwhelming majority of Americans. Obama has proposed eliminating income taxes on seniors making less than $50,000 a year, but 41 percent of those seniors say their income taxes would go up in an Obama administration. MORE